IFLScience - The Big Questions

Amid all the recent noise around generative AI, it’s easy to overlook the fact that there are scientists across almost any field you could think of who have been using artificial intelligence in their work – sometimes for decades. This technology is being leveraged to explore some of the most weighty and complex problems facing humanity, and medical research is no exception to this. Host Laura Sim...

We don’t know if life exists beyond Earth. If it does, we don’t know if these lifeforms have technology like us or maybe even better. Perhaps they could detect us? Despite the unknowns, humans have sent messages to the stars in an attempt to communicate with hypothetical aliens.  Host Dr Alfredo Carpineti speaks to Dr Vishal Gajjar, an astronomer with the SETI Institute, about should we, not just...

What is magic? Rabbits out of hats? Card tricks? Someone in a sparkly outfit getting sawn in half? Well, yes, but it’s also about defying expectations. To psychologist and magician Dr Gustav Kuhn, founder of the UK’s only MAGIC Lab, it’s about causing you to question what you think to be real. Having practiced magic from a young age, he embarked on a psychology degree to try and get a better under...

In this bonus Halloween special episode of The Big Questions, IFLScience takes on the “mystery” of the Loch Ness Monster. Although it’s been nearly 100 years since Nessie was first brought to international attention, no one has provided any unambiguous proof of its existence, and yet every year, thousands of people flock to Scotland in hopes of seeing it. To find out what’s going on, we dispatched...

Everyone loves a good ghost story. Whether you’re a skeptic or a believer, there’s something about the eerie and the uncanny that we all enjoy. But for many people, the things that go bump in the night are not just the stuff of stories; they’re real. In fact, countless numbers of people across the world have their own stories of the strange, whether they’re ghosts, aliens, or any other spook. How...

Time is everything to us: in terms of physical laws, in how we experience the world, and how society works. Still, its true nature remains beyond us. As scientists search for a deeper understanding, the way humans relate to time has changed massively. To explore the questions of what time is and how we measure it, host Dr Alfredo Carpineti is joined by Dr Emily Akkermans, Curator of Time at the Ro...

De-extinction. It’s not a word many of us were thinking about just a decade ago, but it’s one that we’re getting ever more familiar with. The de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences has set its sights on de-extincting 5 key species whose extinction is thought to have either been caused, or heavily contributed to, by humans: the woolly mammoth, thylacine, dodo, moa, and dire wolf. By their defin...

In March 2024, geologists rejected the proposal that we are in a new geological era: the Anthropocene, a time dominated by human activity on the planet. And yet, the evidence of our impact on the Earth’s ecology and climate continues to mount up around us. So how could this decision make sense given everything going on in the world today? To dig through the layers of confusion surrounding the Anth...

Today’s rubbish may well be the fossils of tomorrow. Plastic bags, old pens, cheap clothing, or even chicken bones are all examples of possible “technofossils”, rapidly accumulating debris and detritus that may come to represent the story of humanity in the geological record long after we’re gone. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Host Dr Russell Moul speaks to Professors Sarah Gabbott and Jan Z...

Lining up for your seasonal flu shot is an annual ritual, but what if it didn't have to be this way? Wouldn't it be great if we could develop a universal vaccine that could protect us against all current and future virus strains? Host Laura Simmons speaks to Dr Florian Krammer, a professor in vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to find out just how far humanity has reached...

Language can evolve surprisingly quickly, and nothing has sped it up quite like the invention of the Internet. So, how does it affect how we communicate, not just on our devices but offline, IRL? Join host Tom Hale, senior journalist at IFLScience, as he discusses this and more with Internet linguist Dr Gretchen McCulloch, where they explore the origins of internet acronyms, interpreting tone via...

Of all the celestial bodies, none induce awe and fear in equal measure quite like black holes. They are incredible astrophysical objects and there are plenty of reasons why they are so iconic. In their supermassive form in particular, they have influenced the formation and evolution of galaxies, and more.    Host Dr Alfredo Carpineti sat down with astrophysicist, science communicator, and author D...

While climate change, species extinctions, and increasing carbon dioxide levels might feel like media buzzwords at this point, they all remain very real threats to biodiversity across the globe, and by extension, the future of our planet. Some have even argued that these are warning signs that we are living through a sixth mass extinction. Host Eleanor Higgs discusses Earth’s previous mass extinct...

The expanse of space and the oceanic abyss hold a fascination for humanity; extreme environments where our bodies and technology are pushed to their limits, yet we continue to explore. We take this tongue-in-cheek question seriously and pose it to astronauts and explorers who have done both. Join co-hosts Dr Alfredo Carpineti and Katy Evans as they share insights from space travellers and deep-sea...

We're back! Here's what to expect this season, starting June 19, 2025. If you missed any previous episodes, catch up here: IFLScience The Big Questions

It’s the holiday season, and what better time to gather your loved ones together and absolutely trounce them in an hours-long board game marathon? Humans have been playing and enjoying competitive games for centuries. For this special episode of The Big Questions, host Laura Simmons sat down with Kelly Clancy, neuroscientist and physicist, and author of recent book Playing with Reality: How Games...

Welcome to IFLScience’s first-ever Halloween podcast special, bringing you a feature-length episode of The Big Questions as we take on the UK’s most haunted castle. We journeyed to Northumberland up by the Anglo-Scottish border to spend the night in Chillingham Castle, a place that allegedly boasts an above-average number of ghosts. We wanted to explore what attracts people to sites such as this o...

It’s no secret that octopuses are intelligent – but are they sentient? And how is that reflected in the way that they’re treated? Host Rachael Funnell is joined by Sy Montgomery, author of Secrets of the Octopus, and Sophika Kostyniuk, Managing Director at the Aquatic Life Institute, to discuss the evidence for octopuses’ sentience, and how that could impact the rights they’re afforded in science,...

Are humans done evolving – or could settling on an alien world with an environment unlike Earth’s take us on a different evolutionary trajectory? Host Tom Hale is joined by Scott Solomon, author and professor of bioscience at Rice University, to discuss the myriad ways Homo sapiens may continue to evolve on Earth, and how future human settlements on Mars might influence our species’ evolution.   

Antibiotic resistance is a major health concern. We now have several harmful microbes that have evolved into versions unaffected by common treatments. To find new antibiotics scientists are looking further afield, including in the ocean. Host Dr Alfredo Carpineti speaks to Dr Sam Afoullouss, a marine scientist at the University of South Florida, about the interesting chemistry found in the deep se...

Coming soon: join IFLScience as we explore the questions nobody thought to ask but everyone wants the answers to. Get the behind-the-scenes conversations from CURIOUS magazine’s We Have Questions interviews, as we hunt down the experts to answer some of science’s stranger questions. Until then, catch up with the E-magazine here: https://www.iflscience.com/curious-magazine

Where do baby dinosaurs come from? It’s a question that’s been burning in the collective brain of the IFLScience team for some time. In this episode, host Rachael Funnell speaks with science writer and palaeontologist Riley Black to find out what science has discovered so far about the sex lives of dinosaurs.

Our Solar System is very stable. Planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, and comets go forth in their orbit without trouble. But it won't be like this forever. The future of the solar system will have major changes in the Sun and in the planets. We spoke with astronomer Dr Jon Zink to cast our mind's eye far into the future and explore the end of the solar system.

Hinging our happiness on animals known to have a significantly shorter lifespan than our own was, in hindsight, a bad idea. Saying goodbye to a pet is an incredibly painful time in a person’s life, but what if there were a way we could help our pets live longer, better lives? That’s exactly what Celine Halioua has been exploring as CEO and founder of Loyal, a biotech startup developing drugs to ex...

Science can’t be sexist, we hear you cry, it’s methodical, rational. And yet science is carried out by humans who are often a product of the time and place they operate in, struggling to overcome intrinsic biases and outside influence. Host Katy Evans is joined by zoologist and presenter Lucy Cooke , author of Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal, to discuss how the...