All Episodes
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 in total
The Madness of the Silicon Valley Ultra-rich
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 scien...
Fossils and Feathers: Rethinking What We Know About Dinosaurs
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 th...
New antibiotics are needed to change the game.
Syma gives the second annual Ibn Sina lecture in Bradford City Hall. The event was hosted by the Muslim Institute and the Lord Mayor of Bradford. She discusses her wo...
Jonathan Amos The Voice Behind BBC Science A Day in the Life
In This episode Tim & Syma talk to Jonathan Amos - recently retired science correspondent at the BBC. Jon talks us through his fascinating journey falling in love scie...
Life’s Left Turn: The Strange Science Behind Molecular Asymmetry
Some biological molecules can be left handed or right handed - the sugars that are found in nucleic acids are right handed, whereas 19 of the 20 amino acids that make...
The Good the Bad and the Migrant
Migration is in the news continuously and everyone has an opinion. What does the science of migration reveal? Tim and Syma talk to Ian Goldin, an expert on the pros an...
How did the diversity of life come about?
This week Tim and Syma talk to Max Telford, author of The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle published by John Murray. They explore LUCA, penis worms, and...
Science Explainer: Recent Mount Etna Eruption
In our latest science explainer release Syma chats to David Pyle, world renowned volcanologist, about the recent Mount Etna eruption.
Question and Answer Time!
In this episode Syma and Tim conduct a Q and A session for the many fantastic questions that have been hitting our email inbox over the last three months or so. They a...
The Science Of Football
Surely there is not much more to football than kicking a ball.? Wrong, There is a whole science behind it. Professor Robbie Wilson explains his work in this area and ...
Science Explainer: Why is it so hard to kill bacteria?
In this explainer, Syma discusses some of the methods bacteria use to defend themselves from attack from external threats such as antibiotics. These ostensibly simple ...
Why Wolves Don’t Change Rivers
Dan MacNulty has studied the wildlife in Yellowstone National Park since 1995. His research, and that of his colleagues, has revealed that the narrative that wolves ha...
Science Explainer: New Funding for US based scientists looking to move to the UK.
Tim breaks down a game-changing shift in global science research: as U.S. funding for future research faces uncertainty, UK funding agencies are seizing the moment—off...
Break Barriers: Women, the Physical Sciences Need You Now!
In this short bonus episode Syma talks to Philipp Kukura. Philipp led the development of a technique called mass photometry which enables tracking the movement of indi...
Why Ginger Cats Are Mostly Boys (and Why Some Wolves Are Black!)
In this third quick hit explainer of the week. Why are most ginger cats male? Simple genetics — the orange fur gene is on the X chromosome. Males only need one to flau...
How To Build A Sustainable World
If we don’t build a more sustainable world our civilisation will collapse, potentially in the coming decades. Paul Behrens spends his time researching our impact on th...
AI Undermines Health Science
In our second quick-hit explainer episode this week, Tim breaks down how AI might be disrupting—not advancing—health science. Is the hype overshadowing real medical in...
Why Is There A Universe? Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
In this quick bonus episode, Tim breaks down one of science’s most intriguing mysteries as featured in BBC News today: the difference between matter and antimatter. Jo...
The Quantum Revolution: Lee Smolin’s Bold Theory to Unite Physics
Theoretical physics has two theories at its core that are not straightforward to link – quantum mechanics and general relativity. Lee Smolin, one of the world’s greate...
Special Edition- Can academia provide solutions to threats to biodiversity?
Biodiversity is under threat, and there are many ongoing efforts to help save it, including from within universities. But are academic contributions doing any good? Ou...
Should we fear AI?
Artificial intelligence is a modern-day technology that will impact the way we live much as past innovations like mastering fire, and inventing the printing press, hom...
Natural and artificial genetic hybrids: dogs, coyotes and dire wolves. PART 2
Colossal Bioscience has brought genetic variation back from the grave. It is a remarkable technological achievement, but is it species de-extinction? In this second pa...
Natural and artificial genetic hybrids: dogs, coyotes and dire wolves.
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 Profes...
Will Zombie ants be the last of us?
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) ...
SPECIAL EDITION - Interview with David Baker 2024 Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry
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 foll...
De-mything the hype around de-extinction
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!
Snake venom 'milkers' beware the proteins and not the snake!
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 d...
How did dogs become our best friend?
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 Grege...
Not all birds are the same
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 ...
OSIRIS-REx 'Touch and go' and the emergence of life elsewhere in the cosmos!
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...