Why are we here? Where did we come from? What are we even made from? These must be some of deepest questions humans can ever ask. But that has never stopped scientists throughout the ages asking them.

In this episode we catch up with Professor Tim Coulson, a zoologist based at the University of Oxford to talk about his new book, The Universal History of Us: The science of why we exist.

He helps us trace the origins of human beings right back to the Big Bang and the beginning of the Universe itself and goes on to investigate whether our existence was inevitable thanks to the underpinning laws of nature or whether we were just extremely lucky.

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