Science Stories

Today’s story is a good example of how little we know about biology and life, and how we can use our knowledge to better fight diseases and environmental threats. We are going to talk about bacteriophages or just fages. These are small viruses which attack bacteria. The story is literally about life and death and most organisms on earth are being killed every week. We have covered this topic befor...

The Cost of Underfunding Science Almost 40 years ago the interviewer read a paper on how Europe lacked behind in science and how an economic deficit compared to USA and Japan was building up year year after year. In the year 2000 Minister Mariano Gago mobilised the EU Council of Ministers to agree on an investment scheme for public research suggesting a minimum of 1% of GDP . This was followed by...

[Best of] From the dark ages to life by Science Stories

Science Stories is visiting the AI in Science Summit 2025 co-organized by the European Commission, The Danish EU Presidency and The University of Copenhagen. There is full house with 1200 participants, and the topic is all aspects of artificial intelligence. Science journalist jens Degett is trying to understand artificial intelligence better and has asked Chair of the Summit Steering Committee, D...

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 wh...

Last week the EU Space Conference 2025 took place in Aalborg as part of the Danish EU-presidency. More than 450 stakeholders from science, policy, industry and media met during the two-day conference. The EU Commissioner for defense and space Andrius Kubilius, the Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science Christina Egelund and the former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General, And...

When something is possible and not too difficult to achieve, We are used to say “This is not rocket science” but today's podcast is literally about rocket science - and, in a way maybe the most difficult approach to sending people into orbit we can think of. Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s first and only amateur spaceflight program. The Copenhagen Suborbitals is located in Denmark with suppo...

All organisms from fruit flies to humans share the same mechanism for controlling the day and night rhythms also called the circadian rhythms. This mechanism is considered fundamental to all advanced life forms, and it has a surprising feature. It binds us genetically to live on earth. Michael Rosbash received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2017 for the discovery of the circadian rhythms together...

June 2025 Marked an important leap in Danish Space History. A satellite was launched into orbit on 23 June from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The launch was initiated by the Danish and Swedish Defense ministries and several space research industries and research institutions. The satellite is called Bifrost. And it has a dual mission. This time Science journalist Jens Degett talking t...

We are used to telescopes as instruments on Earth looking out on space or instruments in space looking at even more distant objects in outer space. The Einstein Telescope is very different and will be build deep under the surface of the Earth. Over 2,000 researchers participate in the international organisation and there is a competition between different countries about where to build it. One of...

Center for Exolife Sciences at the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen organised a conference under the theme "Are we a unique species on a unique planet or are we just the ordinary standard?" We may already have detected traces of life in the atmosphere of the distant planet called K2 18b. During four days in Copenhagen 100 researchers were discussing how we interpret signs of life o...

Though we may not hear so much in the media about Mars these days, there is still a lot of really interesting research on the red planet. The two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance are more than living up to their mission expectation but there are 7 other missions making new discoveries every day and a handful of new missions are on their way. Science Journalist Jens Degett is interviewing Ph...

During the summer particle research at CERN has been speeding up. After the Higgs particle was discovered and analyzed more particles at higher energies are needed to reach new levels of understanding of the universe. The top Quarks and the Di-Higgs particle are examples. Science Journalist Jens Degett is interviewing Associate Professor Troels Christian Petersen from the Niels Bohr Institute in C...

It is more than a quarter Century since Denmark took its first steps into space age with the first satellite called Ørsted with the purpose of measuring the magnetic fields around the Earth. The mission was a great success in many ways and paved the way for several research groups working with different astrophysical problems. But it was also the beginning of satellite production in Denmark and th...

If you look at flight maps you can see small stipulated lines with magnetic field direction - on the map. The journalist was told that these lines were moving over time, so as a pilot he had to buy new maps once in a while. The magnetic lines are not static they are moving. This means that the magnetic north is moving too and in fact there has been a movement of the magnetic North of more than 40...

3iATLAS is the third interstellar object or "Interloper" that has been observed in our solar system. The first object of this kind was Oumuamua which was discovered on its way out of our solarsystem in 2017. This time we are more lucky as the interstellar object 3iATLAS has been observed early in its path through our solar system in the beginning of july. 3iATLAS is a rare guest and will disappear...

Superstrings was a very popular topic among physicists in the 1980ies. They had a renaissance in 1995 but then the researchers changed focus to other things. Now superstrings have gained new momentum in physics again. Professor Niels Obers from the Niels Bohr Institute explains what superstrings and string theory is. He also explains why superstrings are popular among researchers again. Science jo...

Gravitational waves is a strange phenomena which was predicted already by Albert Einstein. To understand gravitational waves you need to understand gravitation. In this podcast professor Niels Obers describe gravitation in Newtonian terms and in the frame of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Both descriptions are incomplete but due to research with gravitational waves we may reach to a bett...

When someone begins to study the evolution of the universe and the laws of physics, one easily comes to wonder how strange it is that humans and life exist, and we are able to observe the universe. If the laws and constants of nature were just a little bit different, the occurrence of life is unthinkable. However, we can state that we are here, and this raises a number of other issues, such as: Ha...

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 cy...

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 t...

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 h...

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 wh...