Polymath World Channel

CHRISTIANITY What is Christianity? Does it work? How does it shape the Western world? Glen Scrivener, author of the award-winning book "The Air We Breathe", director of the 321 course on Christianity and CEO of the organisation Speak Life comes to talk about the world's biggest religion and answer my questions. I met Glen a decade ago and we have crossed paths a few times for Premier Unbelievable...

CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Dr Shaun Steveson is lecturer in philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is an expert of philosophy of death, which not many people realise is a subject. His specialism is in continental philosophy with a strong focus on the 20th century. Shaun came to philosophy through theology and has a very interesting story of coming through religion, before abandoning it,...

A City On Mars Dr Kelly Weinersmith is a scientist, pop-sci author, and podcaster. She is on the biosciences faculty at Rice University, a research associate at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the Vice President of the American Society of Parasitologists and President of the Helminthological Society of Washington. After undergraduate and masters degrees at Bowling Green, she did her...

Nuclear Propulsion Can we travel further, faster in space with nuclear propulsion? As NASA gets ready to launch Space Reactor-1 Freedom (SR-1) in 2028 we explore the details of this technology. This mission aims to demonstrate a reactor generating over 20 kW of power, using HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium) fuel. People can get nervous about nuclear, but this technology can (and will) revolu...

GENE EDITING AND TERRAFORMING MARS Dr Erika DeBenedictus is CEO of Pioneer Labs. She is a computational physicist and synthetic biologist working at the intersection of space science and the life sciences. She studied at Caltech before moving to MIT and did her postdoc under 2024 Nobel Laureate David Baker. She also trained at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At Pioneer Labs they use several meth...

COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY AND HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT Many thanks to the British Interplanetary Society for allowing me to publish this lecture on my channel. I was delighted and honoured to speak at the BIS Reinventing Space conference for a second year in a row. What are the implications for human spaceflight and space medicine coming from the recent revolutions in computational biology? How can we use it...

ASTROPHYSICS AND THEOLOGY Dr David Wilkinson is an extraordinary polymath - a man with 2 PhDs and a published scholar across both science and theology. He is Professor of Theology and Principle of St John's College, University of Durham. He has authored many books including God, Stephen Hawking and the Multiverse . After initially working on the study of star formation and the chemical evolution o...

VNCCII NASA ASTROBOTICS and NANOFISCH Samantha Tauber is the visionary creator of VNCCII® and the founding architect behind the Galacta.i.ssance Movement—a bold new cultural renaissance designed to elevate consciousness, awaken the imagination, and serve as a guide to humanity for an abundant future. Through her alter ego, VNCCII®—a cosmic superheroine and celestial ally for humanity’s next evolut...

Theology WHAT DID JESUS LOOK LIKE? Dr John Nelson is a theologian who studied his Masters and PhD at Oxford University. He did his BA at the University of Nottingham. His thesis was on why there is no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament or any early Christian literature. John hosts events across the country with his friend and well-known sceptic Alex O'Connor and moderates discussio...

MARS It was great fun getting together with fellow members of the Mars Society to chat all things Mars. Between us we have rocket scientists, engineers, robotics experts, biologists and a whole lot of passion for the red planet. The Polymath World Channel brings you interviews with extraordinary researchers and academics working on the frontiers of their disciplines. Meet and hear from scientists,...

VIROLOGY Dr Mirjam Schilling is a virologist researching the arbovirus family. She is a dual research fellow of Exeter College at Oxford University with a passion for exploring the impact of viruses on human and animal health. She has featured on ABC news to discuss the pandemic and its influence on climate science, as well as conducting science communication with young people on “what is a virus?...

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Melody Safavizadeh has held leadership roles at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on missions including Mars 2020 and Psyche. With a background in systems integration, electrical engineering, and spacecraft operations, she has helped tackle some of the most exciting challenges in space exploration. She is an advocate for women in STEM and passionate about educational out...

WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE In February 2026 I gave the annual Darwin Day Lecture at Leicester Secular Hall on "The Genomics Revolution in Evolution" explaining how genomics has transformed and deepened our understanding of evolution. The past 10 years in the life sciences have been the most revolutionary for biology since the 1950s, with multiple converging technological breakthroughs changing the game...

MOLECULAR IMMUNOLOGY Dr Denis Alexander is the Emeritus Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund’s College , Cambridge. Dr Alexander was previously Chairman of the Molecular Immunology Programme and Head of the Laboratory of Lymphocyte Signalling and Development at The Babraham Institute, Cambridge. Prior to that he was at the Imperial Cancer Rese...

PHILOSOPHY Dr Joshua Sijuwade is Teaching Fellow in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham. He gained a BA in Theology at London School of Theology, a Postgraduate certificate in Education from Kings College London, before doing his MA in Philosophy at Birmingham and his PhD at York. He was visiting lecturer at London School of Theology before taking his post at Birmingham. His res...

BIOCHEMISTRY Dr Keith Fox is Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at Southampton University. After doing his degree, two masters degrees, and then PhD at Cambridge University he became a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge before moving to Southampton University. His research interests concern DNA structure and its recognition, and his scientific work has been publishe...

Polymath World # Episode 43 - Dr Helen Sharman ASTRONAUT Dr Helen Sharman CMG OBE is Britain's first ever astronaut. Flying to the space station Mir in 1991, she was selected from a large range of applicants to take part in the JUNO mission to the Russian space station where she spent a week performing science experiments, working on the crew rotation and fulfilling mission requirements before ret...

SHARKS Dr Kim Holland is Research Professor at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology.  Known as the 'Shark Lab', together with his team Dr Holland runs the sharks and predators research institute of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, located on Moku o Lo'e (Coconut Island), in Kane'ohe Bay on O'ahu. Holland's work specialises in the organi...

History of science and religion Dr Nick Spencer is the best-selling author of books such as "Magisteria", "The Political Samaritan" and "Playing God". After studying undergraduate and masters degrees in English at Oxford University, he did a 2nd masters degree in literature, before a PhD in political philosophy and theology at Cambridge.  He is Visiting Research Fellow at the Faiths and Civil Soci...

PHILOSOPHY Julian Baggini is an English philosopher, journalist and the author of over 20 books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine, and has written for numerous international newspapers and magazines. His best-selling books include The Edge Of Reason, How The World Thinks, How The World Eats, The Godless Gospel, and Atheism: A Very Short...

Oceanography: Filming whales Howard and Michelle Hall are diving and underwater photography royalty. Few people have brought the world of whales to us as much as they have. Some of the most incredible footage of blue, humpback and grey whales has been shot by them. Their work has greatly benefitted both science and environmental awareness over the past 35 years. I loved hearing their stories and a...

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Dr Philip Goff is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Durham. He is one of the main thinkers behind panpsychism today and a proponent of this perspective on the role of mind and consciousness in the universe. He recently converted to what he calls a heretical form of Christianity which sees God as limited when it comes to the problem of evil. His recent book W...

ASTRONOMY AND HISTORY Dr Simon Mitton is a Fellow of 3 Royal Societies, a Life Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge University, and an incredible astronomer whose career has spanned one of the greatest eras of astrophysics. He is the biographer and former student of the legendary Sir Fred Hoyle and now is set to release the most comprehensive biography of Georges Lemaitre on the centenary of h...

GEOPHYSICS Professor Bob White is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1994, and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2016. In 2018 he was awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, which is their highest award, in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in research. He is a...

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY How can we live on Mars? Dr Tiffany Vora is a synthetic biologist from Silicon Valley and a leading space scientist. A graduate in biology from New York University before doing her PhD at Princeton, she was present in the explosive booms of genomics, systems biology, computational biology and genetic engineering - and we will talk about all of them! She became Visiting Assistant...