Technically Speaking | a science and engineering discussion

We've seen lots of news stories about a global sand shortage but what's really going on? Ellie, Antonia and Laura (joined by Ellie's cat Sparkles) analyse the facts, look at what sand is used for, discuss the effect that sand supplies have on people and the environment and speculate on what should be done next. Read some of the news coverage , digest some sandy facts explained using handy graphics...

Many breakthroughs in medicine have been made from studying rats. Antonia, Laura and Ellie discuss several studies of rat behaviour that have mapped how parts of the brain work and discuss how the results could be applied to humans to develop prosthetic limbs or help recover memory after a brain injury. They look at studies where rats are tickled until they laugh , learn to drive cars , navigate v...

Ever watch an action movie where someone is hurled across the screen during an explosion and wondered how likely that is? Antonia, Laura, Nick and Ellie talk about movie portrayals, nuclear weapons, disaster investigations, and exploding animals.

In an earlier episode on apex predators we had a bit of a tech fail! Here's a big chunk of speculative conversation from Antonia, Ellie and Jasmin that that follows some sort of weird logic but somehow arrives at a sensible conclusion.

To help tackle the climate crisis, we'll need a lot of new technology to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Ellie, Jasmin and Laura share a load of facts about the chemicals, energy requirements and land use involved in technology to capture carbon dioxide from the air. They also look at how planting trees compares to this technology and answer questions from a live au...

If you could take a pill to halt ageing and become immortal, would you? Laura, Jasmin and Ellie take a look at some long-lived species, discuss just some of the science behind ageing and decide, if they could, whether they'd want to stay in their biological bodies forever or upload themselves to live digitally. Read more about the science stories they discuss: Determining how long the Greenland sh...

We've been around for a while and we have a lot of influence over our environment but are we really better than a lion or an orca? Antonia, Jasmin and Ellie discuss whether humans the top of the food chain or whether nature still does it better than we do.

You might be surprised to know that new species are discovered pretty much every day. Laura and Ellie talk about how these discoveries are made and debate whether it's easier to find an exctinct, fossilised species or one that's still alive. You can send your spare pennies to our ko-fi fund to support the podcast here . Read about the discoveries that Ellie and the team at IFL Science have reporte...

The COVID pandemic led to rapid development of vaccines. Laura, Emma and Antonia look at the history of vaccine development, the rapid development of the mRNA vaccine, and speculate on whether future vaccines could be so quickly developed. Read about how viruses are weakened to be used as vaccines , some mechanisms of vaccination , how smallpox vaccines were developed in the 18th century , whether...

We may not know it, but pop culture is pretty good at influencing our views. Antonia and Laura discuss several action films that rely on radiation for plot points and discuss whether these plot points could be backed-up by science. They talk about using radiation to trace chemical leaks, environmental changes and to find things in the human body. Is there any way of using radiation to trace money...

It's contributing to the climate emergency but you don't usually hear about it. Laura, Jasmin and Antonia discuss where it comes from, why it's important, and what can be done to reduce emission of this gas into the atmosphere. Jasmin's research involves methane. Check out her research profile at Imperial College London . Antonia mentions the gates of hell firepit in Turkmenistan.

AI is rapidly evolving and we want to know what will happen next. Antonia, Ellie and Jasmin discuss their experience of AI, what intelligence actually means, how AI works, and how it could affect their individual careers as zoologists, science communicators and analysts. Jasmin talks about her experience with chatbots and references a study on whether people trust them . Antonia references some op...

Like it or not, plastic is a big part of our lives. Laura, Jasmin and Antonia discuss how different plastics are made, how bioplastics are different to ones made from fossil fuels, what is really meant by biodegradable plastics, and whether plastic can be sustainable. The discussion is also peppered with more weird offshoots than normal as real-life examples add to the conversation. Did you know t...

The dinosaurs might take all the glory but well before they existed there was a very important period. Laura and Ellie discuss the 'explosion' in animal biodiversity that started around 541 million years ago and how we know it happened. They also speculate on what sort of animal might be missing from the fossil record and somehow come to the strange conclusion that balloon animals might have been...

Whether you're a scientist or engineer you'll probably handle a lot of data. Laura, Emma and Antonia discuss how they use various data analysis techniques in their different disciplines of energy analysis and physics. They highly recommend towards data science as a resource to learn more and discus a specific example of principal component analysis (the rotating graph) from builtin.com .

A lot of effort goes in to studying birds and their habits. Laura, Ellie and Antonia talk about nesting habits, what we can learn from them and why it’s important for scientists to know about them. They also talk about what you can do at home to help birds survive as climate and their environment changes.

An audience from the Engineering Development Trust's Insights to University course quizzes Antonia, Jasmin, Alasdair and Sophie about how they chose their degree course, what sort of research they worked on, if they got to choose modules about climate change, and whether it’s better to do undergraduate masters or a bachelor’s degree. They also discuss how their individual choices led each of them...

Although carbon capture technology is in use now, there are quite a few hurdles to jump before it becomes widely used. Laura, Jasmin and Antonia are joined by a live audience from the Engineering Development Trust 's Routes to STEM course to talk about industrial applications of carbon capture in various industries. They field questions from the audience about the wider energy industry, discuss ho...

It’s a weird mash-up of biology and physics and it really is useful. Antonia, Emma and Laura talk about how to simulate biology on a computer, how physics is involved, and speculate on how artificial intelligence could help improve the simulations and lead to speedier, cheaper drug development.

It’s not often you hear about a new discovery of theory in science that makes you say 'wow!' Laura and Antonia talk about some of their moments of astonishment when they've learned something about black holes or dinosaurs.

Meteor showers are well worth staying up late for but how often do heavenly bodies fall to Earth and what do they look like? Ellie and Laura discuss this, what to do if you find one, how they compare to terrestrial objects like gold, and discuss whether they're valuable. They also get interrupted by various animals and can't help mention rewilding.

Could artificial intelligence take some of the most highly skilled jobs? Would you want to see an AI for healthcare and get a diagnosis? Would you trust it more than a real life person? Laura, Antonia and Sarah discuss all this and more. Sarah uses her considerable experience as a medical doctor and teaching of surgery to guide us through the pros and cons of AI in healthcare and the team speculat...

The technology to print in 3D has been around for a while and it’s used to do some really cool stuff. Laura and Rwayda discuss an amazing new type of material that can be given different properties simply by turning tiny mechanical gears which could be used to make robots and more. They look at how houses can be printed out of concrete to create visually appealing designs that can outlast traditio...

Hydrocarbons have been really helpful to humankind and some technology relies so heavily on them that we'll not stop using them any time soon. Antonia, Jasmin, Sophie and Alasdair discuss eFuels which are a new source of hydrocarbons that could replace fossil fuels. Sophie and Alasdair talk about the company they have founded called Carbon Neutral Fuels which aims to suck carbon dioxide out of the...

We've seen it used a lot in the movies so Antonia, Laura and Emma discuss what chaos theory menas to physicists along with uses in weather prediction, biochemistry, economics and more. They also have a bit of wild speculation about how it could be used to produce some uplifting storylines.