The Life Scientific

When you think of Artificial Intelligence, does it inspire confidence, or concern? Although it's now generally accepted that this technology will play a major role in our future, a lot of conversations around AI and machine learning come back to the argument over us losing control and robots taking over. Happily, Neil Lawrence has a more optimistic view of the power of AI, and how we might navigat...

A frozen, white world at the far-reaches of the globe, where you're surrounded by snow and silence, might sound rather appealing. Factor in temperatures that drop to -57°C and a few of us might be put off - but for glaciologist Liz Morris, that's very much her happy place. Liz is an Emeritus Associate at the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute, and was among the first British...

Welcome to a world where medicine meets politics: a space that brings together scientific research, government wrangling, public push-back and healthcare conspiracies… Dr Anthony Fauci was the Director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades, during which time he not only helped study, treat and prevent viruses such as HIV/AIDS and Covid-19; he al...

Have you ever pondered the fact that the universe is expanding? And not only that, it's expanding at an increasing speed - meaning everything around us is getting further and further away? If that isolating thought makes you feel slightly panicked, don't worry: this programme also contains wine! Brian Schmidt is a Distinguished Professor of Astrophysics at the Australian National University, known...

How much information can you extract from a burnt fragment of human bone? Quite a lot, it turns out - not only about the individual, but also their broader lives and communities; and these are the stories unearthed by Jacqueline McKinley, a Principal Osteoarchaeologist with Wessex Archaeology. During her career, Jackie has analysed thousands of ancient burial sites across the British Isles, bringi...

Surgeons often have to deal with the consequences of violent attacks - becoming all too familiar with patterns of public violence, and peaks around weekends, alcohol-infused events and occasions that bring together groups with conflicting ideals. Professor Jonathan Shepherd not only recognised the link between public violence and emergency hospital admissions, he actually did something about it. A...

Doyne Farmer is something of a rebel. Back in the seventies, when he was a student, he walked into a casino in Las Vegas, sat down at a roulette table and beat the house. To anyone watching the wheel spin and the ball clatter to its final resting place, his choice of number would’ve looked like a lucky guess. But knowing the physics of the game and armed with the world’s first wearable computer, w...

Elephants are the largest living land mammal and today our planet is home to three species: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. But a hundred thousand years ago, in the chilly depths of the Ice Age, multiple species of elephant roamed the earth: from dog-sized dwarf elephants to towering woolly mammoths. These gentle giants' evolutionary story and its pa...

What does it take to earn the nickname, ‘The Leonardo da Vinci of heart surgery’? That's the moniker given to today's guest - a man who pioneered high-profile and often controversial procedures, but also helped drive huge medical progress; carrying out around 2,000 heart transplants and 400 dual heart-lung transplants during his 60-year career. Sir Magdi Yacoub is Emeritus Professor of Cardiothora...

What's it like living underwater for two weeks? What's the trickiest part of training to be an astronaut? What are the most memorable sights you see from space? Several extreme questions, all of which can be answered by one man: Major Tim Peake. After a childhood packed with outdoor adventures, via the Cub Scouts and school Cadet Force, Tim joined the British Army Air Corps and became a military f...

As the famous frog once said, it's not easy being green. And when it comes to decarbonising industry, indeed, reducing emissions of all sorts, the task is a complex one. Fossil fuels are used to manufacture some of mankind’s most ubiquitous products, from plastics to cement to steel; and even in areas where we’re trying to improve our footprint, there are repercussions. Mining lithium for electric...

Rosalie David is a pioneer in the study of ancient Egypt. In the early 1970s, she launched a unique project to study Egyptian mummified bodies using the techniques of modern medicine. Back then, the vast majority of Egyptologists regarded mummies as unimportant sources of information about life in ancient Egypt. Instead they focussed on interpreting hieroglyphic inscriptions, the written record in...

In the summer of 2003, Europe experienced its most intense heatwave on record - one that saw more than 70,000 people lose their lives. Experiencing the effects whilst on holiday in Tuscany, climate scientist Peter Stott was struck by the idea that just maybe, he could use a modelling system developed by his team at the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, to study extreme weather events such as this ver...

Imagine a nanoparticle, less that a thousandth of the width of a human hair, that is so precise that it can carry a medicine to just where it’s needed in the body, improving the drug’s impact and reducing side effects. Ijeoma Uchegbu, Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London, has spent her career with this goal in mind. She creates nanoparticles to carry medicines to re...

Darren Croft studies one of the ocean’s most charismatic and spectacular animals – the killer whale. Orca are probably best known for their predatory behaviour: ganging up to catch hapless seals or attack other whales. But for the last fifteen years, Darren Croft’s focus has been on a gentler aspect of killer whale existence: their family and reproductive lives . Killer whales live in multi-genera...

Bill Gates is one of the world's best-known billionaires - but after years at the corporate coalface building a software empire and a vast fortune, his priority now is giving that wealth away. And his ethos for doing it has been shaped by science. Famed for co-founding Microsoft, in recent decades Bill’s attention has turned to philanthropy via The Gates Foundation: one of the largest charities in...

The final episode in this series of The Life Scientific is a journey through space and time, via black holes and wormholes, taking in Nobel-prize-winning research and Hollywood blockbusters! Kip Thorne is an Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, the California Institute of Technology, and someone who’s had a huge impact on our understanding of Einsteinian gravity. Over the course o...

It's summer - no really - and although the weather might have been mixed, the sporting line-up has been undeniably scorching - from the back-and-forth of Wimbledon, to the nail-biting Euros, to the current pageantry of the Summer Olympics. Next month the 2024 Paralympic Games get underway in Paris, involving the world’s very best para athletes; and Professor Vicky Tolfrey is at the forefront of th...

The engineering industry, like many other STEM sectors, has a problem with diversity: one that Dawn Bonfield believes we can and must fix, if we're to get a handle on much more pressing planetary problems... Dawn is a materials engineer by background, who held roles at Citroën in France and British Aerospace in the UK. But, after having her third child, she made the difficult decision to leave the...

In recent decades, we've taken huge steps forward in treating formerly fatal viruses: with pharmacological breakthroughs revolutionising treatment for conditions such as HIV, hepatitis and herpes. Raymond Schinazi has played a big role in that revolution. Ray was born in Egypt, where his mother’s brush with a potentially deadly illness during his childhood inspired a fascination with medicine. His...

From anorexia nervosa to binge-eating, eating disorders are potentially fatal conditions that are traditionally very difficult to diagnose and treat - not least because those affected often don’t recognise that there’s anything wrong. But also because of the diverse factors that can influence and encourage them. Janet Treasure is a Professor of Psychiatry at King’s College, London - where she's fo...

Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder that makes renders the body’s connective tissues incredibly fragile; this can weaken the heart, leading to potentially fatal aneurysms. What’s more, anyone with the condition has a 50/50 chance of passing it on to their children. Dr Anne Child is a clinical geneticist who’s dedicated her professional life to finding answers and solutions for people affected by...

Many of us have heard of seismology, the study of earthquakes; but what about asteroseismology, focusing on vibrations in stars? Conny Aerts is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Leuven in Belgium - and a champion of this information-rich field of celestial research. Her work has broken new ground in helping to improve our understanding of stars and their structures. It hasn’t been a...

What is the universe made of? Where does space dust come from? And how exactly might one go about putting on a one-man-show about Sir Isaac Newton? These are all questions that Mike Edmunds, Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University and President of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), has tackled during his distinguished career. And although physics is his first love, Mike is fasc...

With 86 billion nerve cells joined together in a network of 100 trillion connections, the human brain is the most complex system in the known universe. Dr. Hannah Critchlow is an internationally acclaimed neuroscientist who has spent her career demystifying and explaining the brain to audiences around the world. Through her writing, broadcasting and lectures to audiences – whether in schools, fest...