Instant Genius

This week we’re boldly going where no Science Focus Podcast has gone before. Dr Erin Macdonald is the new science consultant for the Star Trek franchise. With the release of Star Trek: Picard on Amazon Prime, she takes us through the science of both the new and classic series. She tells our production assistant and resident Trekkie Holly Spanner about supernovae, what a science consultant really d...

Adam Rutherford is a geneticist at the University College London, which has one of the most prestigious population, genetics and evolution departments in the world. However, the university was also the home of ideas such as eugenics and race science. Times have changed, and although our current understanding of genetics and biology should have consigned them to history, these insidious ideas are m...

In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast we’re investigating long-extinct animals. No, not dinosaurs, they get plenty enough coverage already. Instead, we’re going to look at creatures that lived in the Pleistocene era, a period of time that covered the last known ice age. During this period enormous creatures roamed the Earth, with some surprising animals making what we now know as the...

We all appreciate the buzz of the humble bee in the garden, however, not a summer goes past without hearing news that our bee population is under threat, with the finger usually pointing at habitat loss or chemicals containing neonicotinoids. But in reality, there are a whole host of reasons why our vital bee population is in decline. And given they provide pollination services for every one in th...

We all love a good story, and sometimes a lie is more interesting to hear than the truth, but there is more to it than spinning a good yarn. According to Marcel Danesi, linguist and author of the book The Art of the Lie (£11.95, Prometheus Books), throughout history certain ‘Liar Princes’ have perfected the art of lying to gain fame, fortune and notoriety. In this week’s podcast, he explains what...

By day Dr Becky, is an astrophysicist, unravelling the mysteries of supermassive black holes, but by night entertains science buffs like us on her YouTube channel. In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast she explains how to find a black hole (and why they’re actually incredibly bright), what an astrophysicist does all day, and why flooding YouTube with scientists is the best way to cou...

Hopefully by now the last crumbs of mince pie will be wiped clean and Grandad has woken up from his Christmas day nap. If you’re anything like us, that period between Christmas and New Year means only one thing – lazing in front of the TV and watching the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. This institution has been sharing the wonders of science and entertaining children and adults alike for ge...

If you’re stuffing your face with mince pies this Christmas Day, spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of people working in the NHS providing vital medical support over the festive period. One person who has seen his fair share of Christmas shifts is comedian and writer Adam Kay, who in a previous life worked as a junior doctor. His new book, Twas the Nightshift before Christmas (£9.99, Ha...

Kathryn D Sullivan made history on 11 October 1984 when she became the first American woman to make an Extravehicular Activity, something most of us will know as a space walk, and in this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, she explains how maybe ‘walk’ isn’t the most appropriate way of describing it. She also reveals the importance of planning over plans, the influence of the Hubble Space Teles...

Brian Switek, the pen name of science writer and fossil fanatic Riley Black. This year she released a book called The Secret Life of Bones: Their Origins, Evolution and Fate (£9.99, Duckworth), which as well as explaining how and why we evolved bones, explains the relationship us humans have with these sturdy struts of osseous tissue. In this week's episode of the Science Focus Podcast, she helpfu...

We’re living in the age of big data. Scientists can collect and store more information than ever before. So how can they manage it all? That’s where citizen science comes in. Members of the public can log in to the Zooniverse, the world’s largest citizen science platform, and do the hard work of sorting through the data. Whether that’s searching for alien planets or spotting penguins, the project’...

Why are teens so emotional? Why won’t they listen when adults depart their worldly knowledge? Why won’t they tidy their rooms? Well, there are plenty of parenting books out there that attempt to answer these questions, but in the new book Why Your Parents Are Driving You Up the Wall and What To Do About It (£8.99, Penguin) by neuroscientist, comedian and science writer Dean Burnett, for the first...

If you need advice for the best way to move house, predict the weather or take a selfie, Randall Munroe, the creator of the webcomic xkcd, can’t help you. But if you’re willing to get creative, Randall’s book How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems (£16.99, John Murray Press) will show you the worst ways to solve your problems, with some help from tennis star Serena William...

Some scientists now believe we are living in a new epoch, the age of invention and human influence on the world, called the Anthropocene. In 2014, science journalist and broadcast Gaia Vince took readers on a journey through this new world in her award-winning book, Adventures in the Anthropocene. Documenting the startling impacts of human’s growth on Earth, Gaia opened eyes to the future that we...

Every Tuesday morning, physicist and science communicator Jim Al-Khalili presents the long-running radio programme The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4. On 5 November 2019, the show celebrates its 200th episode, so we caught up with Jim just after recording this landmark show. He talked to us about what it’s like to work on The Life Scientific, he fights the corner for creativity in science, and rev...

In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we hear from renowned travel writer and science communicator, Bill Bryson. Beloved by readers around the world, his works have included Notes from a Small Island, an observation of life in England, and the best-selling science book A Short History of Nearly Everything. His new book is called The Body: A Guide for Occupants (£25, Doubleday), where he tu...

Scroll through Facebook or Twitter and you’ll notice that many people type in a particular style: full of lols and emoji, and rarely using punctuation or capital letters. Does this mean that we’re losing the ability to use our language correctly? Gretchen McCulloch, author of Because Internet (£12.99, Penguin Books), says absolutely not: in fact, internet users have collaboratively developed a sty...

In this week’s podcast, we speak Robert Elliott Smith, an expert in evolutionary algorithms and researcher of artificial intelligence. His latest book, Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All (£20, Bloomsbury), explores how the harmful effects of bigotry, greed, segregation and mass coercion are finding their way into the AI that r...

Today on the Science Focus Podcast, we’re talking to Professor Monica Grady, planetary and space scientist, ahead of World Space Week. World Space Week runs from 4 to 10 October, and this year’s theme is ‘The Moon: Gateway to the Stars’. Events to celebrate World Space Week are being held in the UK and across the world, including Monica’s talk at the Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. Monica’s research s...

Science and art have not always been separately defined. Leonardo Da Vinci studied anatomy, neuroscientist Cajal created beautiful drawings of the cells in the cerebellum and hippocampus, and the painter John Constable observed the skies with an almost scientific study. Though their pursuits have diverged into distinct fields, the relationship between art and science has remained tightly woven tog...

Richard Dawkins is considered one of the top British intellectuals of the 21st Century. He’s known for his opinions on atheism and his books on evolution. In his most recent book, Outgrowing God, he talks about his own experience with religion, and how science offers us a far more convincing and concrete view of the world we live in. We sat down with Richard to discuss his views on faith, flat-ear...

When Apple launched its health tracker app HealthKit in 2014, they promised users the ability to track everything from their blood pressure to their copper intake – but not their periods. This seems like a startling oversight, but Apple aren’t alone in failing to consider women’s needs. For example, it wasn’t until 2015 that the EU required new cars to be tested on a female crash-test dummy. Carol...

Launching a rocket into space doesn’t come cheap. That much won’t surprise anybody, but what goes into the planning, construction and the science before the mission even gets off the ground? And when it’s up there, what does it do, and what makes it a success? One man that knows how to put a space project together is Mark McCaughrean, senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Spac...

The largest organ in the body isn’t the lungs or the brain, but the skin. Our skin performs a vast array of functions for us, from protecting us from disease to helping us make friends. Dr Monty Lyman, author of The Remarkable Life of The Skin (£20, Bantam Press), calls skin the ‘Swiss Army Organ’ because of all the tasks it carries out. Monty talks to BBC Science Focus Online assistant Sara Rigby...

If you grew up on a steady stream of Hollywood blockbusters filled with killer robots, alien invasions and apocalyptic natural disasters, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the future looks pretty bleak. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be that way. In fact, according John Higgs, a writer who specialises in finding previously unsuspected narratives hidden in obscure corners of our hist...