Inside your stomach, on your skin, in your mouth, and up your nose are bacteria. They are abundant and they play a significant role in making you, you. Join Tim and Syma as they talk to Aura Raulo and Eveliina Hanski, two early career researcher who are fascinated by the microbiome and how it impacts everything from the food we choose to eat to our social relationships. 

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Synthesis:

Quantum computing has been argued to be the next big thing in computing. But what exactly is it, and is the hype justified? 

We talk to Professor Ian Walmsley who leads has recently been appointed as the head of Oxford Quantum Institute. 

Due to a few quantum issues yet to be solved, we conduct the interview in 0 and 1s rather than qubits. 

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Tim and Syma talk to Yossi Yovel who is bringing together the disparate disciplines of ecology and neuroscience to help understand how animals see the world and communicate. Much of his work has focused on bats, who use echolocation to paint a picture of the world. But he also talks about the noises that plants make, and how moths and other insects use those noises. There is a whole cachophony of noises we pay no attention to that other animals use. Listen as Yossi tells us a little bit about what it is like to be a bat!

Our sponsor for this episode is Grace and Garbo! Thank you.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GraceandGarbo
'At Grace and Garbo we are passionate about vintage knitwear. From classic fair isle, to one-of-a-kind artisan hand knits and vibrant mohair. Visit our Etsy store, Grace and Garbo, for our unique collection of vintage knitwear'

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Omar Yaghi is a chemist with an extraordinary vision. The pioneer of MOFs (metal organic frameworks) - materials built from the molecular equivalent of LEGO bricks. He tells Tim and Syma about his humble beginnings in a cramped room in Amman, Jordan- where the conditions were limited, but his vision certainly wasn’t. 

A chance encounter with a chemical model building kit, set him on a pathway of discovery. 

Flying in the face of conventional chemical wisdom, he built large, well defined, ultra porous chemicals structures from individual building blocks. These structures are now being explored to salvage water from arid enviroments, to extract carbon dioxide from the environment and keep it locked away so it cannot amplify the ‘greenhouse effect’.  

His vision and the new chemistry it has produced has the potential to combat global warming, to provide clean drinking water and remove harmful plastics from the environment.

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Syma and Tim talk to Professor Joan Strassmann about the social life of birds. We cover a range of topics she writes about in her excellent new book, including flocking, social roosting, mating together, and raising chicks in a commune. Learn about redshanks seeking safety in numbers to neotropical cuckoos building communal nests and then pushing out the eggs of other females. 

Strassmann’s book is called “The Social Life of Birds: Flocks, Communes and Families”.

It is published by Headline Press in the UK and Tarcher in the US.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Lives-Birds-Joan-Strassmann-ebook/dp/B0DFTY5184/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2R65LGBAPF9YJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.imkNYnQMu1aTowV-UccyvA.B8ehnVRInjZzzwS4mm79Lwd7mKpMfhazgmKOQNNgY6U&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+social+life+of+birds&qid=1754064334&sprefix=the+social+life+of+birds%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1

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Tim and Syma talk to Professor Dora Biro  about animal behaviour and cognition. Want to know why your kitten behaves differently from you, or discover that chimps become less competent at using tools as they age? This is the podcast episode for you.

You can read Dora’s recent paper on tool use in chimps here: https://elifesciences.org/articles/105411

Our sponsor for this episode is Grace and Garbo! Thank you.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GraceandGarbo
'At Grace and Garbo we are passionate about vintage knitwear. From classic fair isle, to one-of-a-kind artisan hand knits and vibrant mohair. Visit our Etsy store, Grace and Garbo, for our unique collection of vintage knitwear'

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In this weeks episode, Tim and Syma get the run down on wasps, courtesy of Seirian Sumner, entomologist and behavioural ecologist. Will Syma now forgive the wasps, following a recent encounter?

Seirian's book
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Endless-Forms-Secret-World-Wasps/dp/0008394512/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Our sponsor for this episode is Grace and Garbo! Thank you.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GraceandGarbo
'At Grace and Garbo we are passionate about vintage knitwear. From classic fair isle, to one-of-a-kind artisan hand knits and vibrant mohair. Visit our Etsy store, Grace and Garbo, for our unique collection of vintage knitwear'

If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - [email protected]
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Tim and Syma talk to Ray Pirrehumbert, author of Planetary Systems: A Very Short Introduction, about planets orbiting far away stars. They learn how these distant objects that we will never visit are detect, a little bit about a few of them, and how we might detect life on a far-away planet. If you are interested where aliens might live, this is the podcast episode for you.

Ray's Book:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/planetary-systems-9780198841128?cc=gb&lang=en&

Ray's Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/climatebook.bsky.social

Our sponsor for this episode is Grace and Garbo! Thank you.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GraceandGarbo
'At Grace and Garbo we are passionate about vintage knitwear. From classic fair isle, to one-of-a-kind artisan hand knits and vibrant mohair. Visit our Etsy store, Grace and Garbo, for our unique collection of vintage knitwear'

If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - [email protected]
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Tim and Syma talk to Adam Becker about his stunning new book, "More Everything Forever". They explore how the philosophy of effective altruism aligns with flawed scientific ideas about how humanity can create super-intelligent AI before colonizing the galaxy. The philosophy is as flawed as the science.

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Adams fantastic book:
https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/adam-becker/what-is-real/9781473661349/

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Tim and Syma talk to dinosaur expert, Roger Benson, from the American Museum of Natural History. They learn why there were no small dinosaurs, how the animals lived their lives, and why they are relevant today. Interested in #T.Rex #Diplodocus or #Velociraptor? This is the episode for you.

Our sponsor for this episode is Grace and Garbo! Thank you.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GraceandGarbo
'At Grace and Garbo we are passionate about vintage knitwear. From classic fair isle, to one-of-a-kind artisan hand knits and vibrant mohair. Visit our Etsy store, Grace and Garbo, for our unique collection of vintage knitwear'

If you are a business and would like to take advantage and leverage the power of the fast growing podcast ad stream market, and in particular sponsoring 'Science Of The Times', please drop us a line - [email protected]
Advertising via podcasts is a cost efficient way of reaching a wider market.