Science Of The Times

Colossal Bioscience has brought genetic variation back from the grave. It is a remarkable technological achievement, but is it species de-extinction? We talk to Professor Bridgett vonHoldt, a world-leading dog geneticist, who was involved in Colossal Bioscience’s recent dire wolf de-extinction work that has caused some controversy. In part 2 of this podcast we talk a world-leading ecologist who gives us his - different - take.

The link below is a genetics paper, not talking about de-extinction.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074v1

A bonus episode in which Tim and Syma discuss how the zombie ant-based creatures seen on popular dystopian future drama Last of Us are based on real fungi (Cordyceps) which infect ants - and then exploit the now zombie ants to produce more fungi, killing the ants in the process. Yes it’s a bit gruesome, but it’s science!

Syma and Tim are joined by Nobel Laureate David Baker, one of the winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on computational protein design. This follows the interview with Tim Jenkins, and Susana Vasquez in Episode 7 who worked with David. After the interview Tim asks Syma to explain in simple terms the process of protein design and what may be possible in the future.

Colassal says it has de-extincted an animal. Is this a dire wolf or a dire mistake? Join Tim and Syma on this short bonus edition!

Proteins are the workhorses of life, with thousands overseeing and getting involved in reactions within our cells. Biologists have long dreamed of being able to make designer proteins to do specific tasks, and recently a team of  scientists have made this happen. Syma and Tim talk to researchers who designed, and then made, a protein that neutralises a type of snake venom. In the first release we talk to Susana Vázquez and Tim Jenkins who were key members of the team, and in the second release, on Sunday, we chat with David Baker who was one of the recipients of 2024 Nobel prize for Chemistry for de novo protein design.

The paper is available here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08393-x

Dogs are people’s best friend, but how did that happen?  Did we tame them or did they train us, or is it a bit of both?  Join us as we discuss domestication with Greger Larson and Lachlan Scarsbrook

Not all Birds are the same. In analyses of thousands of hours of bird song our guests, Nilo Merino Recalde and Ben Sheldon found predictable variation in the calls of great tits. Showcasing the power of AI in analyses of data from the natural world they show birds show cultural differences much like humans do.

https://nilomr.github.io/

OSIRIS-REx is a space craft that visited the asteroid Bennu, returning samples to Earth in late 2023. The first exciting results from the analyses of these samples are just being published. In the first part of the Podcast we talk to Sara Russell about the mission and her recently published results, and then in the second Part we talk to Addy Pross on what the insights mean for the emergence of life elsewhere in the cosmos.

Link to Sara's paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08495-6
Link to Addy's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Life-Chemistry-Becomes-Landmark/dp/0199687773

Tim and Syma’s guests are Gordon Sanghera and Lakmal Jayasinghe of Oxford Nanopore Technologies. They discuss how their elegant technology is transforming the ease with which we can now learn what information is contained in our genes and how this is being used already in hospitals to detect for example, cancers in children. Gordon gives his vision of what might be achievable in the future.

Later in this episode, Tim flies solo in the wake of Syma's imminent departure for duties on the west coast of the US!
Tim's guests are Ivan Vinogradov and Michael Jennions, both of the Australian National University, and co-authors of the scientific paper 'Paternity analysis reveals sexual selection on cognitive performance in mosquitofish".

It would appear that smarter male fish are more likely to mate and produce more offspring! How on earth could this be true?!! 

Join Tim, Ivan and Michael to find out.

Link to the paper - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02645-3