Podcast Episodes

Jacqueline McKinley on unearthing bones and stories at Britain's ancient burial sites

How much information can you extract from a burnt fragment of human bone?

Quite a lot, it turns out - not only about the individual, but also their broader lives and communities; and these are the st…

Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago

Jonathan Shepherd on a career as a crime-fighting surgeon

Surgeons often have to deal with the consequences of violent attacks - becoming all too familiar with patterns of public violence, and peaks around weekends, alcohol-infused events and occasions that…

Published on 5 months, 4 weeks ago

Doyne Farmer on making sense of chaos for a better world

Doyne Farmer is something of a rebel. Back in the seventies, when he was a student, he walked into a casino in Las Vegas, sat down at a roulette table and beat the house. To anyone watching the wheel…

Published on 6 months ago

Tori Herridge on ancient dwarf elephants and frozen mammoths

Elephants are the largest living land mammal and today our planet is home to three species: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant.

But a hundred thousand years…

Published on 6 months, 1 week ago

Sir Magdi Yacoub on pioneering heart transplant surgery

What does it take to earn the nickname, ‘The Leonardo da Vinci of heart surgery’?

That's the moniker given to today's guest - a man who pioneered high-profile and often controversial procedures, but a…

Published on 6 months, 2 weeks ago

Tim Peake on his journey to becoming an astronaut and science in space

What's it like living underwater for two weeks? What's the trickiest part of training to be an astronaut? What are the most memorable sights you see from space? Several extreme questions, all of whic…

Published on 9 months, 1 week ago

Anna Korre on capturing carbon dioxide and defying expectations

As the famous frog once said, it's not easy being green. And when it comes to decarbonising industry, indeed, reducing emissions of all sorts, the task is a complex one.

Fossil fuels are used to man…

Published on 1 year ago

Rosalie David on the science of Egyptian mummies

Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt. In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the…

Published on 1 year ago

Peter Stott on climate change deniers and Italian inspiration

In the summer of 2003, Europe experienced its most intense heatwave on record - one that saw more than 70,000 people lose their lives. Experiencing the effects whilst on holiday in Tuscany, climate …

Published on 1 year ago

Ijeoma Uchegbu on using nanoparticles to transform medicines

Imagine a nanoparticle, less that a thousandth of the width of a human hair, that is so precise that it can carry a medicine to just where it’s needed in the body, improving the drug’s impact and red…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago