Tech and Science Daily | The Standard

Small and medium-sized enterprises accounted for 99.9% of the UK’s 5.7 million new companies last year. So what does it really take to build a business from scratch today, and how easy is it to secure funding?In this episode, host Tamara Kormornick sits down with Raphael Sofoluke, the founder of the UK Black Business Show and UK Black Business Week, and Izzy Obeng, the founder and CEO of Foundervi...

It’s the final show with Alan Leer, and we’re not going out quietly. A major study is mapping pesticide exposure against cancer hotspots and raising awkward questions about what “safe” even means when chemicals mix in the real world. Meanwhile SpaceX tries to get Falcon Heavy back up, but the weather does what it does. Back home, London gets a proper academic flex out of UCL, and in gaming, Diablo...

Al’s on for your Monday commute as White City gets a fresh AI flex — Imperial and Lenovo are launching a new London AI Technology Centre aimed at turning big-model theory into real deployments. Then we pivot to your iPhone, because Apple’s patched a privacy flaw tied to message notifications that really shouldn’t have been hanging around. And in gaming, Nintendo’s dealing with a class-action heada...

Al’s in your ears for the Friday commute, because London’s recycling future just got a bit more robotic — Imperial-linked Recycleye has been acquired, and the bin-sorting glow-up continues. Then it’s proper science cinema: researchers get closer to explaining why volcanoes throw lightning tantrums mid-eruption. After the break, Cisco shows off a universal quantum switch prototype — basically plumb...

Alan Leer in your ear for the Thursday commute, because London’s just green-lit a new research hub in Paddington aimed at taking on antimicrobial resistance — the superbug problem that makes modern medicine quietly terrifying. Then it’s CyberUK season: ministers want AI companies helping build national cyber defence, while security chiefs warn the worst threats are coming from hostile states. Afte...

London’s open-science crowd takes over the Francis Crick Institute, UCL and UCLH share a seriously encouraging bowel cancer trial follow-up, and Sony starts nudging UK PlayStation users toward age verification ahead of June. Plus, Oppo’s next flagship tees up its UK arrival, and Fallout 76 gets its latest tune-up. Read more at standard.co.uk — and follow Tech and Science Daily from The Standard fo...

Al’s on the mic with a tight commute sprint: London-led researchers say gut bacteria could help flag Parkinson’s risk years before symptoms — then it’s a UK move to get robots out of the lab and into actual workplaces, with “one-stop shop” adoption hubs. After the break, Hubble celebrates 36 years with a gorgeous Trifid Nebula update. More at standard.co.uk — follow Tech and Science Daily from The...

Al’s back with a tight commute sprint: London rolls out the red carpet for the BAFTA Games Awards, as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 nabs Best Game and Dispatch hoovers up the craft gongs. Then Tesco quietly tries to bin the barcode — swapping in QR codes on sausage packs, because even your weekly shop is basically software now. We’ve also got a proper science win as Luxturna’s sight-restoring gene t...

Al’s in your ears with a proper commute sprint: OpenAI locks in a permanent London office for 2027, the UK trials robots for the kind of hazardous incidents you really don’t want humans walking into first, and a major immunity study hints at how the post-Covid landscape could shape the next outbreak response. After that, gaming gets loud — Pragmata finally lands — and Fortnite quietly opens up Sav...

Al’s on with a quick commute sprint: Downing Street drags TikTok, Meta, X and mates into No.10 to talk kids’ online safety — because infinite scroll isn’t exactly a public service. Then a genuinely hopeful medical headline: a major trial looks at using existing targeted cancer drugs “off label”, guided by tumour genetics, with actual evidence and guardrails. After the break, it’s Patch Tuesday cha...

Al’s back with a quick sprint through the stuff shaping your day — starting on the District line, where TfL expands LiDAR scanning to check the network without sending everyone down the tunnel. Then it’s a very UK-flavoured battery boost, with a new £25m innovation round aimed at materials, recycling, and supply-chain resilience.After that: a genuinely urgent one — Adobe patches an Acrobat/Reader...

Alan Leer's on the mic for your London commute as Anthropic admits it’s built an AI model it won’t release — and launches Project Glasswing with a who’s-who of tech to secure critical software. We also hit a London bit of calendar-watching as Tech.eu reveals what it’s pushing at its London summit, and a UK transparency drop as the ICO details how an LLM helps turn messy complaints into real cases....

A UCL team in Bloomsbury is finding ways to make tumours less “invisible” to the immune system, while the government looks to clamp down on signal jammers — the sneaky gadgets that help thieves blank your doorbell, tracker, or shop alarms. After that, we go full sci-fi-but-real with lab-grown mini brain models, then land in gaming with Cyberpunk showing off on PS5 Pro. And yes, there’s even a “not...

For Episode Nine, Evgeny is joined by Michael Pollan, journalist, author, and one of the leading voices exploring the human mind. Drawing on his new book A World Appears, Pollan makes an impassioned case for consciousness as something precious, private, and increasingly under threat. Together, they explore how social media and AI are not just competing for our attention, but beginning to shape att...

Al’s on the mic for a quick commute-friendly sprint: London’s hosting a 13-nation quantum pow-wow as the UK tries to help write the rules for the next big tech era. Then up to Sheffield, where researchers say the way we make chips could get a lot greener if supply chains shift closer to home. Also: telecoms firms re-promise to stop the sneaky bill stuff, with legacy inflation-linked rises heading...

Alan Leer is in with a proper commute-friendly sprint through today’s tech and science. London researchers linked to UCL hit a bonkers fibre speed record — using existing installed cable — while the UK’s Online Safety regime gets sharper as a key reporting duty kicks in today. Then we go brainy with a study teasing out a “neural fingerprint” for psychedelics, before switching to gaming where Starf...

Al’s back in your ears with a proper mixed bag: TfL quietly tests smarter detection tech on Tube tracks (eyes peeled at Mile End) and roads with radar cameras, while the UK’s next-gen Skynet military satellite plan sparks a very serious “who controls what” debate. Then we go full cosmic — Artemis II swings behind the Moon and pushes past an Apollo-era distance record — before a clean-energy resear...

London Tech Week tees up a new Deep Tech Stage for June, the government names its preferred candidate to chair UKRI, and researchers report something that sounds made-up but isn’t: “trade winds” inside cells that help move proteins as cells migrate. Plus, April gaming season begins — and yes, Goat Simulator 3 is on Switch 2 today. More on all of it at standard.co.uk, and follow Tech and Science Da...

UCL teams up on a stem-cell therapy plan to help babies with Hirschsprung disease — the kind of story that actually changes lives. Then it’s the UK CMA poking around Microsoft’s business software ecosystem, because “it’s fine, everyone uses it” is not a competition policy. In the lab, a phonon “sound laser” shows off a wild new way to measure gravity with extreme precision. After the break: Arc Ra...

Al’s running you through a very modern mix: London Games Festival turns the city into one big playable space, UK genomic science pulls a major epilepsy-linked diagnosis out of the “dark genome”. After the break, space science gets strange — microgravity may mess with sperm navigation — and Apple’s iOS 26.4 UK age checks arrive with equal parts safety intent and privacy drama. More at standard.co.u...

Al’s back in your ears with a very London Monday mix: shiny new lab space opening up in West London for biotech teams who actually need benches, not buzzwords — while UK scientists kick off about deep cuts to theoretical physics funding. Then it’s a straight public health update as UKHSA publishes its technical briefing on the meningitis B outbreak response, plus what the NHS is doing on vaccines....

London does what London does best: quietly drops a UCL-led trial suggesting a simple skin patch could treat locally advanced prostate cancer as well as injections — with real potential to widen patient choice. Then it’s a very 2026 combo of deepfake detection work from DSIT, the UK’s age-assurance direction of travel, and MPs asking what we actually know about kids, phones, and brain development.A...

Al’s on in London after a proper space tease overnight: Isar Aerospace gets the go-ahead in Norway… then aborts in the final checks. Back on Earth, City Hall grills TfL with automated vehicles in the mix, and the UK pilots app limits, social media bans and digital curfews for teens at home. After the break: a God of War patch aimed at nasty save issues, and a BlackBerry-style keyboard phone makes...

London gets a tiny-but-mighty commute update as TfL redesigns the Baby on Board badge — because sometimes a bit of visual signalling does more than a thousand glares. Alan Leer also breaks down the government’s latest numbers on getting a million people online, plus what the UK’s 2G switch-off guidance means for older phones and those sneaky “smart” devices you forgot even exist. After the break,...

Al’s on with a very real London problem: doing nights and trying to manage type 2 diabetes when the only “fresh option” is whatever’s blinking inside a vending machine. Then it’s MPs dragging the big platforms back into the spotlight over harmful algorithms, before we go global with the UN weather agency warning the planet’s climate is more “out of balance” than ever. After that, a rare bit of eco...