Is The World F*cked?

Is narcissism on the rise? Are we all in danger if losing our souls behind a cloud of selfies and avocado-on-toast pics and ‘look at me’ TikTok dance videos? Yep, it’s only one of the biggest questions of our time, and today your fearless and dynamic duo of podcasting is diving in! PJ offers advice on how to spot a narcissist. Dr Bruce exhibits an unhealthy fixation with the Queen of Denmark. And...

H2, what is it good for? After calling out the scam-artists and greenwashers and setting a match to just about every hydrogen project on the planet based on the sky-high energy-input requirements and appalling economics, we’re putting on our nice guy hats to look at where that fab little molecule makes sense. But you know us: fun is our name and irreverence is our game, so of course we also rake o...

Hydrogen projects are everywhere and hey, they’re green, right? Water at the tailpipe? No CO2 emissions? And Toyota has bet BIG so it’s gotta be good. What’s not to like? Turns out, plenty … Your loveable rogues are kicking off 2024 with a BANG this episode by checking out the good, the bad and the ugly of the universe’s smallest and most plentiful atom, and as always, we’re not holding back!  It’...

In this episode, we tackle the deepest of questions: "Are all BMW drivers assholes?” and needless to say, it’s all downhill from there! After performing an irreverent dissection of driver behaviour and car brands with sordid marketing campaigns, the banter takes a surprising turn regarding wealth, privilege, and entitlement before unveiling a genuine university study aimed at answering the bu...

Jurassic Park. It’s  one of our all-time favorite movies. De-extinction, baby! Who wouldn’t want to  watch a T-Rex chomping down on a goat … and, er, eyeing us through an upside-down car window ... Okay, okay, maybe not! Um, PJ, how about bringing me back a nice placid herbivore instead? How big, did you say? Cripes! How about one that can't stomp on my house? Questions, questions! And here’s...

In this episode, we're diving into the world of cholesterol and, spoiler alert, it's a pretty big deal... especially if you have high LDL numbers despite training your arse off and running for miles (as per guess who - we heard you PJ :). The World Health Federation dropped a bombshell recently, attributing nearly 8% of global deaths to high cholesterol every year. Shocking, right?  But...

Dr Bruce recently had the good fortune of venturing into the world of Amazon Fulfilment Centres - and what he found is insane.  As he walked through the unmanned doors, it hit him – he'd just stepped into the pulsating heart of an algorithmic wonderland. So today, we're peeling back the layers of this e-commerce onion to reveal the comedic gold that lies within. From the mesmerising danc...

Let's get rid of our phones. Our cars. Our laptops. Our kids? Today we're unpacking a unique experience—Dr Bruce's visit to the Amish community in the USA a few weeks ago.  Bruce brings his first-hand experience among the rolling hills and red barns,  as we delve into the Amish lifestyle, the good and bad, traditionally rooted in simplicity. Famous for their aversion to modern conve...

Ready for some darkness? All this year, senate committees and billionaires and scientists have been wrangling the question, ‘Is AI an existential threat to humanity?’ Yes, really. Dr Bruce and PJ wade into the arguments, for and against. So, how could it happen? What do we watch out for? Will our executioner be Skynet, The Terminator, HAL 9000 … or Siri! Remember that wrong turn off a bridge? Than...

How to tackle plastic pollution? Can we? We rip into the plastic polluters spewing their packaging across our landscapes and into our rivers and growing the monumental garbage-islands that are already blanketing our oceans. What can we do to stop these vandals? What can we do to trap the stuff earlier?  Can we make recycling work? Are bio-plastics the answer? Warning: we’re angry, and we aren’t ho...

Solar roadways anyone? So with all these EVs around, how can we charge them without relying on heavy dirty energy production? Well, we thought we'd find out by exploring the weird, whacky, and wonderful ways of charging vehicles.  Rollable solar panels you can keep in the trunk? How about wireless charging while you’re honking down the highway at full throttle? And what crazy scheme are they...

Just when you thought you understood electric vehicles, along comes a company re-inventing them from the ground up! So now the question is: what do you do with your old redundant EV?  Well, we're not sure. However, we are sure that the Solar EV, or SEV, is very real, and despite being currently challenged when it comes to commercialization, is sure to win that battle (just as Tesla did), to b...

What's that Rover? There's danger over that fence? Are you sure? Ohhhh, you mean you FEEL like there's danger over there. OK - no problem my beautiful fur baby. I'll grab my AI co-pilot so we can talk that through (and your puppy-hood), then let's get you to the vet shrink.. and sort that out for good.   OK - before we start. It's all fine ... we LOVE pets - especiall...

Wait - have you got a charger? I need a charger? Is there a powerpoint here somewhere? I need a powerpoint. Can I move this table? Can those people move aside? I think there's one behind there is all. I need that charger. I need it NOW! You know the feeling. Lose the power - and it feels like you're disconnected from the world. Because in so many ways now - you are. So have a think - how...

The meat market (no not those old bars you hung out in - we mean the actual meat market) is on the move - are we F'ed or not? And we go beyond just plant-based alternatives - this gets bloody! We’ve covered the massive global footprint of meat in a previous episode, now we’re sinking our teeth into possible solutions - both the plant-based and lab-grown variety. Yes, it's here.    That&a...

Computing power that we all use is about to change forever - and you heard it here first. The next generation of computer chips is on the way - and they are not as we know it... they're Neuromorphic! Neuro-what? Neuromorphic! Bio-inspired! More brain-like! Mimicking the eyes and ears and brains of flies, mice and -- yep -- humans. Computing power is so - well... computer-like.... and that&apo...

Bet that got your attention! If you day trade - or anything like it - you HAVE to listen to this episode - whether your financial advisor likes it or not. Oh yeah, because to hell with all that energy stuff we've been discussing for a while, today the boys are talking money! Mullah! Bacon! Coin! BANK!!!!!   We're channelling our inner Gordon Gekkos and ripping into the stock market mafia...

It's the second half of our Fusion love-fest. Having taken you on a tour of the International Thermonuclear Power Plant (ITER) in France, this time we’re flying you across the Atlantic to ogle yet another power plant under construction in Devens, Massachusetts. Why does this one matter so much? We tap the secrets of the breakthrough design and talk cost efficiencies, because as we all know bo...

Too much promise? Well... you listen and be the judge. We think firing up a human-made STAR right here on planet Earth is a great idea... BOLD, AUDACIOUS, MASSIVE, POWERFUL........... and SAFE. Yep... don't believe it - take a listen and find out. Completing our atomic tri-pod, this time we’re talking about that “other” atomic energy. That super-sexy, super-sultry version that beckons us away...

After our Oppenheimer chinwag we thought we’d better talk about the ‘other’ nuke: nuclear power plants, that is. Fission, baby! Atom-splitting for energy! It comes up constantly as a solution to climate change. It’s baseload, it comes with really cool chimneys, and it’s a place where people like Homer Simpson can work, so why not deploy a few thousand of those babies and kick greenhouse gases squa...

Time for an ITWF field trip so we scraped together all our podcast earnings and bought two tickets to “Oppenheimer,” and while we suck as movie reviewers we more than make up for it in enthusiasm! After which we segue into some light-hearted topics such as, um, the necessity of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the madness of Mutually Assured Destruction, the number of nukes currently locked and cocked an...

Welcome to the future, where hidden cameras capture your iris dilation and heartbeat and face flushes and breathing, and software listens to the stress patterns in your voice, all for the purpose of deciding whether or not you are telling the truth. Except it’s not the future. It's now. That's right, we're creeping into the dank dungeons of lie detection and predictive policing and...

The hottest July (2023) in 120,000 years seems like a good time for a status check on emissions. We couldn't let it go... even the most skeptical out there would have to be interested in this result. OK - so July 2023 broke all heat records in the air and in the ocean. And not just by a bit. We're talking about a massive effort result coming from where to mark the hottest month ever reco...

It doesn’t get scarier than this! After a listener request, we’re talking geoengineering schemes to solve climate change. You know, small things, like using nukes to knock planet Earth further away from the sun. Dr Bruce divines the crazy from the casually insane, then details the schemes that serious scientists really are considering before going truly dark with the experiments people are conduct...

Fresh from presenting on the future of medicine, Dr Bruce is busting to talk about what he considers one of the most exciting frontiers right now -- reading and decoding directly off the brain (and writing to it too!). Neuroethicists are split on whether a study that uses brain scans and AI to decode imagined thoughts poses a threat to mental privacy. But whatever you think -  the advances are com...