Instant Genius

Materials scientist Gordon Wallace is the director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. He is developing the ‘sutrode’, a medical device made from graphene that combines the electrical properties of an electrode with the mechanical properties of a suture.

The device is wrapped around damaged or malfunctioning nerve bundles and used to stimulate them and return their regular function. Though still in its early stages, the technology may one day be used to treat epilepsy, schizophrenia, and in the production of next generation prosthetics.

He speaks to BBC Science Focus commissioning editor Jason Goodyer in this episode of the Science Focus Podcast.

We now have more than 75 episodes of the Science Focus Podcast, each of which is still well worth a listen. Here are a few that you might find interesting:

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Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the United States in October 2012, causing $65bn of damage. Remarkably, weather forecasters managed to predict its impact on the US eight days in advance, when it was barely even a storm.

How did forecasts get to be so good? It’s a story that begins with the invention of the telegraph and ends with supercomputers.

We talk to Andrew Blum, author of The Weather Machine (£16.99, Bodley Head), about the history of weather forecasting, why we shouldn’t trust the icons on our weather apps, and whether we’ll ever have an accurate minute-by-minute forecast.

He speaks to BBC Science Focus online assistant Sara Rigby.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast which we think you will find interesting:

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Image: Actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio stares at a visual showing Hurricane Sandy using data from Goddard Earth Observing System Model © NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth

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In mid-July this year, science and music lovers alike donned their Wellington boots and rain ponchos and made the journey to Jodrell Bank Observatory for the fourth annual Bluedot festival.

The star-studded line-up included Helen Sharman; the first British astronaut, Jim Al-Khalili; science writer and author, an incredible 3-D concert experience from Kraftwerk and the post-punk sounds of New Order.

We sent BBC Science Focus’ new editorial assistant Amy Barrett to the festival, where she chatted to a few of the speakers at the event. Not bad for your first week in a new job, eh?

First up was, Libby Jackson, Human Exploration Programme Manager at the UK Space Agency, who took to the Mission Control stage to talk about the future of space exploration and the UK’s role in that future. While some looked back across the fifty years since the Apollo Moon Landings, she talked to Amy about advances in the space industry, human exploration and the Bluedot experience.

Also in attendance at the festival was Tom Shakespeare, professor of disability research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Tom was involved in three events over the weekend, talking assistive technology, the ethics of genetics and being an activist.

Finally, back at Jodrell Bank where she began her career, Danielle George brought the invisible Universe to light. She spoke to us about the Lovell Radio Telescope based at Jodrell, new endeavours such as the SKA (Square Kilometre Array telescope project) and what we can learn from looking at our skies.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast which we think you will find interesting:

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We can’t reverse the slow march of time, but thanks to the wonders of technology and modern medicine, we have a lot more of it in our lives. But as people live longer, and the birth rate declines, how are we going to manage a world with an ageing population?

That one of the questions Sarah Harper, Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford, has been trying to find an answer for.

She talks to BBC Science Focus editorial assistant Helen Glenny about how we cope with dramatic shifts in population, what effect it has on natural resources and climate change, and a quirk in our retirement age that suggests we should start drawing our pension aged 103.

How Population Change Will Transform Our World by Sarah Harper is available now (£9.99, OUP)

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast which we think you will find interesting:

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In the past few years, traditional male stereotypes have come under increasing scrutiny.

These stereotypes often come under the term ‘Toxic masculinity’, which has been widely used to explain certain male actions and characteristics that conform to established gender roles, which do harm to both themselves or the society that they live in.

Gary Barker has a PhD in developmental psychology and studies how we raise and socialise boys and men. In the late 1990s he founded Promundo, which carries out global research into men, boys and masculinities, and recently discovered that that in the UK, this these negative stereotypes could be costing the economy an additional £3.8bn a year.

He speaks to BBC Science Focus editorial assistant Helen Glenny about why these stereotypes are harmful, and what a new, progressive form of masculinity could look like.

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For most of us, switching off the light and curling up in a warm, cosy bed is the welcome reward for a good day done (or much-needed respite from a bad one).

But not everybody can soak up their allotted hours in joyful slumber before the alarm goes off. In fact, according to the Mental Health Foundation, it is estimated that 20 per cent of adults suffer from some form of insomnia, while many more of us experience issues like sleep walking, sleep apnoea and night terrors.

Dr Guy Leschziner is a world-renowned neurologist and sleep physician, whose new book The Nocturnal Brain: Nightmares, Neuroscience and the Secret World of Sleep (£16.99, Simon & Schuster) attempts to unpick some of the mysteries around what is happening to your body whilst you doze off in the land of Nod.

In this podcast, we find out what is happening in our brain while we dream, how to get a better night’s sleep, and whether sleep tech and apps are all they’re all cracked up to be.

He speaks to BBC Science Focus Online Editor Alexander McNamara.

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This week on the Science Focus Podcast, we spend some time with James Lovelock – the visionary scientist and environmental thinker who this month turns 100 years old.

James Lovelock is best known as the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, which proposes that our planet and all the life on it functions as a single self-regulating organism.

Less well known is that he also developed scientific instruments for NASA missions to Mars; he invented the electron capture detector, with which he became the first person to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere; and he even carried out influential work in cryopreservation, bringing frozen hamsters back to life.

James Lloyd, staff writer at BBC Science Focus, visited Lovelock at his Dorset home to look back at his life and achievements.

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The UK government’s official climate advisors recently reported that the country’s greenhouse gas emissions must fall to zero by 2050 in order to tackle the growing threat of manmade climate change.

However, it seems unlikely that we will be able to reach this target by simply burning less fossil fuel and cutting down on international travel. So what else can be done?

Environmental charity Rewilding Britain thinks that the answer is to let large areas of the country return to their pre-agricultural state to restore natural carbon sequestering environments such as peat bogs, heaths and salt marshes.

In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast BBC Science Focus commissioning editor Jason Goodyer talks to environmental researcher Mark Lynas about the potential beneficial effects of rewilding.

We now have more than 75 episodes of the Science Focus Podcast, each of which is still well worth a listen. Here are a few that you might find interesting:

Follow Science Focus on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flipboard

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We like to think our Science Focus Podcast is something really rather special (really, you should tell all your mates about it). But let’s face it, it pales in comparison to the hugely popular podcast No Such Thing As A Fish, which bagged Apple’s prestigious ‘Best New Podcast’ award in 2014.

Numerous awards later, including the 2019 Heinz Oberhummer Award in science communication, they have amassed a whopping 700,000 subscribers for their irreverent podcast about the weird and wacky things they’ve discovered over the past week.

We can’t resist the opportunity to get meta and do a science podcast about doing a science podcast, so we sent Online Editor Alexander McNamara to meet two of the show's stars, Andrew Hunter Murray and Dan Schreiber, where they chewed the ‘facts’ about Isaac Newton lecturing to empty theatres, meeting scientists who suggest putting fake eyes on a cow’s backside, and the logistics around building a statue out of sausages.

We also put their fact-checking skills to the test with a little quiz pulled from the Q&A section of BBC Science Focus Magazine. Why don’t you play along as well and let us know how you get by tweeting us @sciencefocus.

Please remember to rate and review our show wherever you download your podcasts from.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

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After World War II, mainstream science denounced eugenics and the study of racial differences. Yet there remained a staunch group of scientists who continued to research race. For a few decades, these people remained on the fringes of research. Yet now, in the 21st Century, fuelled by a rise in the far right and extremist views, an increasing number of researchers are framing race as a biological construct rather than a social one.

Yet even well-meaning scientists continue to use racial categories in genetics and medicine, betraying their belief that there are biological differences between us, and that race can explain differences in intelligence and disease susceptibility.

In her new book, Superior, Angela Saini explores the concept of race. She interviews anthropologists, historians, social scientists and geneticists and finds that time after time, the science is retrofitted to accommodate race.

Here, she talks to BBC Science Focus production editor Alice Lipscombe-Southwell.

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Image: Nazi officials use callipers to measure an ethnic German's nose. The Nazis developed a system of facial measurement that was supposedly a way of determining racial descent. The compiled results, based on biased samples, were used to back up the Nazi claim that Germans were a pure and superior "Aryan" race © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

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