Naturebang

The humble sea sponge has been around for over 500 million years.

We may think of them as ‘simple’ animals, with no brain, no nerves and no organs. But they have a pretty good party trick up their fleshy sleeves. Push a sponge through a mesh, until all that remains is a cloud of cells. Pour those cells into a tank, and watch as the cells reform themselves, like the terminator, back into a sponge.

Becky Ripley and Emily Knight ask: is it the same sponge it was before?

Would you allow yourself to be dissolved into a molecular cloud and flung through space and time? And would the ‘you’ at the other end really be the same ‘you’ that left?

Featuring Professor Sally Leys from the University of Alberta, and Philosopher Charlie Huenemann from Utah State University.

Produced and presented by Becky Ripley and Emily Knight.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2019.

Starling murmurations, those swirling, shifting sky-patterns made by hundreds of birds moving in synchrony, are one of nature’s greatest spectacles.

How do they avoid crashing into each other?

Becky Ripley and Emily Knight delve into the maths behind the movement with some computer modelling to help them chart the flight patterns, and discover the secret.

As for us humans, sadly we don’t fly together through the sky in swirling clouds. But there ARE patterns to how we interact with one another.

Like a ripple of movement, travelling through a cloud of starlings, ideas can spread through social media with blistering speed. Here too, computer modelling can help us chart how opinions morph as we react to those around us.

Do we have more in common with the birds than we think?

Featuring:

* Jamie Wood from the University of York

Produced and presented by Becky Ripley and Emily Knight.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2019.

Becky Ripley and Emily Knight look to the natural world to answer some of life's big questions. Science meets storytelling, with a philosophical twist.