Instant Genius

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Instant Genius episodes

February 21, 2021Inside the February issue with the BBC Science Focus team
In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we chat through the February 2021 issue of the magazine, which is on sale now.
Managing editor Alice Lipscombe-Southwell opens the episode by telling us why it's so important artificial intelligence learns how to tell stories.
Next up is editor Dan Bennett, who tells us about the world’s first airport for drones and flying cars, which is opening in Coventry, UK.
Finally, commissioning editor Jason Goodyer tells about the latest developments in the study of dark matter.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Hannah Fry: How much of our lives is secretly underpinned by maths?
Robert Elliott Smith: Are algorithms inherently biased?
Bergur Finnbogason: Project Discovery and its search for exoplanets
Ritu Raman: Can you build with biology?
Robin Ince: Inside the mind of a comedian
Finding the fun in science – Dara Ó Briain

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35 min
February 15, 2021Mental health and your brain: What happens when it goes wrong
In the UK, one in four people experience a mental health problem each year. The reality of living with common problems like depression and anxiety is increasingly well-known.
But how much do you actually know about what’s going on in your brain when your mental health suffers?
Neuroscientist Dean Burnett, author of the new book Psycho-logical, tells us all about it on this episode of the Science Focus Podcast.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Dean Burnett: What’s going on in the teenage brain?
The neuroscience of happiness – Dean Burnett
Prof John Drury: The psychology of lockdowns
How virtual reality is helping patients with phobias, anxiety disorders and more
Elisa Raffaella Ferrè: What happens to the brain in space?
Dr Guy Leschziner: What is your brain doing while you sleep?

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50 min
February 08, 2021Why rewilding success stories make us hopeful for the future
There are few places left on Earth that have been untouched by humans, and biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate.
Luckily, there are ambitious rewilding programmes around the world that aim to fix this by returning land to nature.
In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we speak to Dr Andrea Perino, a scientist from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and an expert on rewilding. She tells us about the benefits of rewilding, whether it's acres of forest or just a tiny patch in your back garden.
Read more about rewilding
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Mark Lynas: Could leaving nature to its own devices be the key to meeting the UK’s climate goals?
Merlin Sheldrake: How have fungi shaped the world?
Samantha Alger: What can we do to save the bees?
Ross Barnett: Why should we be interested in prehistoric animals that aren’t dinosaurs?
Sir David Attenborough: How can we save our planet?
Brad Lister: Are we facing an insect apocalypse?

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27 min
February 01, 2021The psychology of the sea shanty: Why work songs are such earworms
2021 has got off to a strange start, with a surprising trend sweeping the internet: sea shanties. This ancient genre of music has exploded in popularity in recent weeks, thanks to people on social media singing them, sharing them and adding their own twists.
In fact, they’ve become so popular that Bristol-based shanty band The Longest Johns have entered the top 40 in the UK singles chart.
Naturally, we here at BBC Science Focus wanted to know what it was about sea shanties that makes them so catchy. So this week, we spoke to Professor Catherine Loveday of the University of Westminster. She’s a neuropsychologist who specialises in music.
Read more about the science of sea shanties
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Read the full transcription of this episode [this will open in a new window]
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Could these gloves be the future of music? – Imogen Heap
The neuroscience of happiness – Dean Burnett
Dr Pete Etchells: Do video games encourage gambling behaviour?
Why you can’t multitask (and why that’s a good thing)
Phobias, paranoia and PTSD: Why virtual reality therapy is the frontier of mental health treatment
How a scientist used viruses to save her husband’s life from a superbug

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23 min
January 25, 2021Team talk: Beating pandemic burnout, the seasons of you and a daring giraffe rescue
In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we chat through the January 2021 issue of the magazine, which is on sale now.
Editor Dan Bennett opens the episode by talking about new research that suggests that rather than following a pattern of spring, summer, autumn and winter, our bodies may have their own seasonal fluctuations that don’t match the calendar.
Next up is managing editor Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, who tells us about how we can beat the pandemic burnout.
Finally, commissioning editor Jason Goodyer tells the story of a daring rescue of endangered giraffes from an island where food is slowly running out.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Read the full transcription of this episode [this will open in a new window]
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
End of year roundup: The non-COVID science that brought us joy in 2020
Inside the December issue with the BBC Science Focus team
The Science Focus team: What’s inside November’s issue?
Why you can’t multitask (and why that’s a good thing)
Prof John Drury: The psychology of lockdowns
How a scientist used viruses to save her husband’s life from a superbug

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31 min
January 18, 2021Why you can’t multitask (and why that’s a good thing)
Humans' ability to turn thoughts into actions has enabled us to change the world. But we've never been great at getting two things done at once.

Understanding how our brain helps us achieve our goals through something called executive function, or cognitive control, can explain why we're so bad at multitasking.

According to neuroscientist Prof David Badre, when we're armed with this knowledge we can begin to work together to become a better society. Badre's new book, On Task (£25, Princeton University Press) explains the mechanisms behind cognitive control.

In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast we speak to Badre to find out more about how our brains work.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Read the full transcription of this episode [this will open in a new window]
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Dean Burnett: The neuroscience of happiness
Daniel Freeman: How virtual reality is helping patients with phobias, anxiety disorders and more
Anthony David: Why is there still such stigma around mental health?
Pete Etchells: Are video games good for us?
Sandro Galea: What is the difference between health and medicine?
Helen Russell: What does it mean to be happy?
Gordon Wallace: Is an implantable electronic device the future of medicine?

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48 min
January 11, 2021How virtual reality is helping patients with phobias, anxiety disorders and more
In the New Year issue, we cover the biggest ideas that you need to understand in 2021, and in the past few episodes of the podcast we’ve been talking to the experts who will explain these ideas in their own words.

For the next in the series, we speak to Daniel Freeman, a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford. Daniel has been working with VR technology since 2001 and is a founder of Oxford VR, a University of Oxford spinout company.

He tells us about using virtual reality to treat mental health problems.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Read the full transcription of this episode [this will open in a new window]
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Anthony David: Why is there still such stigma around mental health?
Pete Etchells: Are video games good for us?
Sandro Galea: What is the difference between health and medicine?
Helen Russell: What does it mean to be happy?
Gordon Wallace: Is an implantable electronic device the future of medicine?
Dean Burnett: The neuroscience of happiness
Dr Lucy Rogers: What makes a robot a robot?

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38 min
January 04, 2021How a scientist used viruses to save her husband’s life from a superbug
In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we're joined by AIDS researcher Professor Steffanie Strathdee.
In 2015, Strathdee's husband was infected by superbug that was resistant to every antibiotic that the doctors could throw at it, but she was able to save his life with an experimental treatment made of viruses found in sewage.
In the New Year issue of BBC Science Focus Magazine, we cover the biggest ideas that you need to understand in 2021. This episode is one of a series in which we talk to the experts who will explain these ideas in their own words.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Marcus Chown: Does the Big Bang really explain our Universe?
Sonia Contera: How will nanotechnology revolutionise medicine?
Professor Catharina Svanborg: Is the cure for cancer hiding in human breast milk?
Brian Switek: How did bones evolve?
Bill Bryson: What should we know about how our bodies work?
Dr Monty Lyman: What does our skin tell us about ourselves?

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48 min
December 28, 2020Marcus Chown: Does the Big Bang really explain our Universe?
In the New Year issue of BBC Science Focus Magazine, we cover the biggest ideas that you need to understand in 2021. Over the next few episodes of the Science Focus Podcast, we’ll be talking to the experts who will explain these ideas in their own words.
In this episode, we talk to science writer Marcus Chown, who tells us all about the major problems in our current understanding of cosmology. We discuss the Big Bang, dark matter, inflation, and what we still don't know about the formation of our Universe.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Katie Mack: How will the Universe end?
Dr Douglas Vakoch: Should we try to contact aliens?
Dr Jacob Bleacher: Why do we need to go back to the Moon?
Elisa Raffaella Ferrè: What happens to the brain in space?
Dr Erin Macdonald: Is there science in Star Trek?
Kathryn D. Sullivan: What is it really like to walk in space?

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50 min
December 24, 2020End of year roundup: The non-COVID science that brought us joy in 2020
It’s been a long and strange year, and most of our attention has been focussed on the coronavirus. So, in this bonus episode of the Science Focus Podcast, the team talks about this year’s most interesting science that has nothing to do with COVID.
We start off by talking about our favourite scientific developments of the year, and then we discuss the books and documentaries that we’ve loved.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:
Inside the December issue with the BBC Science Focus team
The Science Focus team: What's inside November's issue?
Dr Douglas Vakoch: Should we try to contact aliens?
Dr Jacob Bleacher: Why do we need to go back to the Moon?
Andy Weir: Building a base on the Moon, and crafting believable sci-fi
Gretchen McCulloch: How has the internet affected how we communicate?

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45 min

About Instant Genius

From the publisher's feed

Whether you’re curious about getting healthy, the Big Bang or the science of cooking, find out everything you need to know with Instant Genius. The team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine talk to world-leading experts to bring you two bite-sized masterclasses on a new subject each week.