Science Stories

We are used to think about the universe as a structure which started with a Big Bang and then expanded. Sir Roger Penrose, who received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, has developed an alternative theory of the universe based on Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity which is called "Conformal Cyclic Cosmology". In this new model we don’t have one single Big Bang, but an iteration of infinite cycles (or aeons) of expansion and cooling, each beginning with a “big bang” and ending in a “big crunch”.

Science Journalist Jens Degett interviews Professor Niels Obers, Director of the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA) and professor at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, on Roger Penrose’s theory and how much evidence is needed in order to change the general view of a central paradigm which is written in our school textbooks. What if Penrose is right? What consequences or perspectives will it have for us?

This podcast on our living universe is recorded in Danish. We will try to make an English transcription as soon as we we can get a suitable transcription tool.

This podcast on our living universe is recorded in Danish. We will try to make an English transcription as soon as we we can get a suitable transcription tool.

This Is an original interview with one of the great Nobel Laureate who is talking about the development of life in the universe.

One of the most powerful and advanced laser research institutions in the world is situated in Hungary. It is called the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) The Lasers of ELI can generate light pulses so bright that they can capture femtosecond and attosecond events in the molecular and atomic range. This can be used in a number of very different research disciplines from medicine and life science to climate and material research. More than 600 researchers work here, but many more are visiting from all over the world.

More than 100 years ago August Krogh received the Nobel Prize for showing how oxygen is transported from the lungs through the blood into the small capillaries in the muscles. Details of the mechanism and how it is regulated are still central topics of research a hundred years after and understanding respiration is still a matter of life or death.

In this interview science journalist Jens Degett had the opportunity to talk to, one of the world's leading physiologists professor Christopher Ellis from the University of Western Ontario (Canada) about how August Krogh's 1920 Nobel Prize greatly influences physiological research even 100 years later.

In addition to Nobel Prize class research, August Krogh founded one of the first biomedical companies in Denmark. The company would later become Novo Nordisk, which is now among the world's largest manufacturers of biomedicine and insulin.

Photo credit: Jens Degett

DNA and RNA sequence analysis enable researchers to form a total overview of which species of microorganisms and parasites live with humans, animals and plants.

It is not just in our gut where microorganisms are playing a role in our digestion. Also on the skin and all mucous membranes, in the mouth and all the way down into the hair follicles, we live together with parasites and microorganisms which help to shape our lives and our development.

This knowledge makes it possible to see organisms in a far more holistic perspective, which provides a far better understanding of the factors that have evolutionarily shaped the species as they now appear in nature.

In this podcast, Science Journalist Jens Degett talks to Professor Marcus Thomas Pius Gilbert from the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics (CEH) at the University of Copenhagen. The center has recently received DKK 67.7 million from the Danish National Research Foundation.

Photo credit: Jens Degett

Obesity, mobility, exercise and cancer are in the spotlight for researchers as there is an increasing amount of evidence pointing at the metabolic mechanisms which bind them together.

Associate Professor Lykke Sylow from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Molecular Metabolism in Cancer and Ageing at the Health Faculty at University of Copenhagen Is being interviewed by science journalist Jens Degett from Science Stories about why it is important to be in a good shape, and all the benefits of exercise.

The first quantum computer has arrived. The version of a quantum chip that recently came out of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen is now for sale, but it has already been sold out.

The price is cheap according to professor Peter Lodahl from Sparrow Quantum who has recently moved out of the old Niels Bohr Institute to the other side of the street. Not a big move but a quantum leap.

Science journalist Jens Degett is talking to Peter Lodahl in this podcast trying to understand what a quantum computer can do, how it works and what purpose it will serve.

Professor Birger Lindberg Møller from Center for Synthetic Biology, Denmark, has always been impressed with the plant world and how plants can act as sun driven biochemical factories which can generate all the substances needed for growth and development of the plant. Plants can defend themselves with poison, they can signalise to each other and protect themselves against being eaten.

Humans have domesticated plants for thousands of years. With genetic engineering plants can be developed to produce a large amount of different substances from medicine to food and they can protect themselves better against environmental changes and diseases.

But the GMO approach has been controversial since the first GMO plants were launched in the 1990ies. Now Birger Lindberg Møller has another solution. Why not let the plants make their own natural mutations and select those which have the right genetic traits? It is possible to plant thousands of plants and select the very best with modern PCR screening.

Photo credit: Jens Degett, © Science Stories ApS.

En af Science Stories hyppige gæster er læge og professor Anders Fomsgaard fra Statens Seruminstitut, som hjalp os igennem COVID pandemien og siden da har bidraget med masser af viden om infektionssygdomme.

Anders Fomsgaard skrev for nylig en bog om sit liv som læge. Bogen hedder Syge Historier, og i denne podcast fortæller Anders Fomsgaard historier fra bogen til videnskabsjournalist Jens Degett.

Foto kredit: Jens Degett, © Science Stories ApS