Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

For years we have wondered what the purpose of sleep really is, and while huge strides have been made regarding our understanding of the function of sleep, much more remains to be uncovered. Joining Jonathan to chat through some of the theories we have on why we sleep and have dreams is Robert Stickgold, Professor of Psychiatry at the Center for Sleep and Cognition, Harvard Medical School.

Semiconductor devices are everywhere, with almost 80% of the Irish population having a smartphone - not to mention any number of other computer devices. And not only is their presence in modern life ubiquitous, but the way in which these devices are produced is also astonishing - being created through a painstaking process requiring single atoms to be removed one by one. Joining Jonathan to discus...

Severe period pain, infertility and even depression - living with endometriosis can have serious effects on quality of life. Will new technologies finally yield therapy for those with the condition? Joining Jonathan to discuss this is Dr Kate Lawrenson, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in LA.

An injury to the spinal cord can be hugely traumatic and life-changing. While currently, there are no proven treatments that protect against the consequences of SCI work goes on to change that. Aleksandra Serafin, a Ph. D. researcher at the School of Engineering at the University of Limerick, is involved in one line of research that looks to be a part of that change - she joins Jonathan to discuss...

The Africanized honey bee has earned itself the nickname of ‘the killer bee’, but how much truth is there to the suggestion that the species was created by an experiment gone wrong? Joining Jonathan to discuss this is Mark L. Winston, Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. Catherine McGuinness, Zoologi...

Think of those greatly-preserved Roman structures like the Pantheon and you might marvel that they are still standing after all these centuries. So what’s so special about this ancient construction that leaves us with these marvelous buildings? Linda Seymour, a former MIT doctoral student with a background in civil engineering – alongside researchers from MIT, Harvard, and labs in Switzerland and...

The notion of human beings getting to and settling on Mars has been a staple of science fiction for decades. But what are the social, scientific, and engineering constraints for establishing a colony, and what are the current blueprint and design concepts for the settlement of an entire Martian city? Justin Hollander, Urban Planning Professor at Tufts University and the author of ‘The First City o...

We would traditionally associate sperm as solitary swimmers but new research suggests that the male reproductive cell can sometimes move into groups. Joining Jonathan to discuss why this might be the case and what significance this behaviour could have on our future fertility is Chih-Kuan Tung of the Department of Physics at North Carolina A&T State University.

It may come as no great surprise to any of our listeners that it is our goal here at Futureproof to educate and reveal the world of science to you. In order to do that, we must keep you entertained, and engaged - we absolutely have to hold your attention. That being said, try as we might, chances are that at least for some of you, your mind will wander. But in this modern age are we inclined to al...

In this special episode of Futureproof, Jonathan looks back at some of our favourite pieces from throughout 2022. - Martin Wikelski, Professor at the University of Konstanz & Director at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour explores the idea that animals can detect natural disasters. - Carl Zimmer, an award-winning New York Times columnist and author of ‘Life’s Edge: The Search For What It Mea...

Our senses are at the heart of how we navigate the world - coalescing in any moment, in any combination, to varying degrees, to relay what is going on around us and within us. But when you stop to think about the level of complexity involved in making sense of all of this in your brain - it really is quite astonishing. That being said, are we guilty of doing our senses a disservice by reducing the...

Over the 13 years of doing this show one of the things that we, and indeed all of the field of Astrophysics, has been trying to get our collective head around is the idea of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. To the layperson, these ideas can seem like rather convenient inventions thought up merely to paper over the cracks in our current models. But let’s be honest, most of us don’t really know enough a...

Evolution is constantly adapting us to our environment, making species more suited and better equipped to survive in their natural habitat. So why did our distant ancestors have better teeth than we do? And what can the study of our gnashers tell us about our diet, our oral health, and our very origins as a species? Professor Peter Ungar is a Paleoanthropologist, and author of 'Evolution’s Bite: A...

From day one we feel our way into, and through, the world. By utlising a complex array of sensory receptors that grow and evolve as we mature, we come to understand not just everything we encounter in our external lives but also in our internal lives as well. We are sentient beings. But what is sentience and when did it arise in animals? And why are we sentient at all? Nicholas Humphrey is Emeritu...

One of the most blindingly obvious problems facing human space travel is that space is very big. It’s like REALLY big. Space being big means things in it are far away and the amount of time it takes to get from one rock to the next presents a myriad of challenges for any aspiring "Star Trekker". First of all, you’re going to need a lot of supplies, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time expos...

Photography may, at a cursory glance, appear to dwell in the domain of the humanities and artistic expression but it is a vital tool to science as well. When it comes to understanding the vastness of the cosmos or the structure of a cell, we rely on imagery to help us better understand the natural world around us. But how do the technologies that give us these images actually work? How do we make...

For most of us, the word “multiverse” probably conjures up some sort of fun sci-fi episode like the universe in which we all have hot dogs for fingers in Oscar contender ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ or the parallel universe in Star Trek where there’s an evil you with a moustache. Multiverses are just vehicles for our flights of fancy, right? Well, that’s what we thought until Professor Will...

In this special insatllment of Futureproof Gold, we take a listen back to our award-winning episode 'Enemies of the State'. Among other guests, Mara Hvistendahl, Contributing Correspondent for Science, National Fellow at New America and author of the Wired article 'Inside China's Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking', joins Jonathan to explore the true potential that technology has in controlling...

For this very special episode of Futureproof, recorded live at the TU Dublin Grangegorman Campus, Jonathan was joined by a panel of guests to explore the limits of human and artificial intelligence. Joining Jonathan is: -Dr. Benjamin Cowan, Associate Professor at UCD's School of Information & Communication Studies and Co-Principal Investigator at The ADAPT Centre. -Dr. Tomás Ryan - Associate Profe...

For this very special episode of Futureproof, recorded live at the TU Dublin Grangegorman Campus, Jonathan was joined by a panel of guests to explore whether it is possible for a human being to run forever. Joining Jonathan is: - Ultra Runner, Keith Russell - Helen French, Associate Professor in the RCSI School of Physiotherapy - Dr. Oran Kennedy, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy and Regenerative Medici...

Joining Jonathan to discuss how the skills needed to perform laparoscopic keyhole surgery as well as e-sports can be significantly enhanced by applying electric neurostimulation during training is Adam Toth, ESRL Research Program Manager at Lero in the University of Limerick.

When you walk out your door today, it may be sunny, it may be windy, the waves may be crashing against the shores with an awesome fierceness. Or, you know, none of those things might be happening. And therein lies one of the fundamental issues with renewable energy, its unpredictability. But one thing that won’t happen when you go out there this morning is that you won’t float off into the air. Gr...

Jonathan is joined by Karen Bakker, Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and author of 'The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants' to explore the sounds in nature that we cannot hear. Andrea Maier, Oon Chiew Seng Professor in Medicine, Healthy Ageing and Dementia Research, Co-Director at the Centre for Healthy Lon...

As well as trying to sell you products you’ve just been talking about but don’t want, and beating humans at chess or Go or Mario cart, AI can actually do some real good in the world. One field in which AI could really have a profound effect is medical diagnostics for instance. Dr. Nikolas Pontikos is the Principal Investigator and Group Leader of the Pontikos Lab at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology...

Physics, while absolutely fascinating, can be impenetrable. And it isn't just cutting-edge ideas that can melt our brains, often we accept basic principles and ideas without really knowing how they work or even what they are. This week, Jonathan is joined by Sean Carroll, physicist, and author of 'The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion', to explain some of the fundamental aspec...