The World, the Universe and Us

Episode 285 New archaeological evidence from Iron Age Britain has shaken up long-held beliefs about the role of women in ancient civilisations. By studying the genes of the Durotriges tribe, who lived in Dorset 2000 years ago, researchers have discovered women were the centrepiece of Celtic society - supporting evidence that they had high status across Europe. Rachel Pope, Reader in European Prehi...

Episode 284 Creating disease-resistant humans may before too long be a reality thanks to advancements in CRISPR gene editing. It’s now possible to make dozens - if not hundreds - of edits to different genes at once. As the field progresses rapidly, a controversial paper published in Nature explores just how powerful this technology could be in protecting against diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabe...

Episode 283 On this special episode of the podcast, we set you up for the year ahead. 2025 has been declared the year of humanoid robots. Futuristic robots that look like us are already being rolled out by companies like BMW and Tesla - and production is set to ramp up. One company is even planning to create an army of 10,000 warehouse robots called Digit. We’re going to see big changes in the foo...

Episode 282 Looking back at some of the best stories New Scientist has published in 2024, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge that will serve you well over the holiday season. Rowan Hooper hosts a panel of New Scientist journalists, as they take it in turn to highlight their favourite moments from the year. Head of features Josh Howgego kicks off by looking at the race to find an amazing...

Episode 281 In this special episode recorded live at the Science Museum in London, we celebrate some of the best, most awe-inspiring science stories of 2024.  Round one kicks off with the panelist’s stories of the year, including the discovery that thousand-year-old preserved brains are much easier to find than we realised, that metallic nodules found on the sea floor could be acting as “geobatter...

Episode 280 Google claims it has pulled ahead in the race for quantum supremacy. Its new Willow chip has completed a task in 5 minutes that a classical computer would take 10 septillion years to complete. But the biggest breakthrough is how it excels in error correction. Find out what this means and why some scientists believe this new quantum computer proves the existence of the multiverse. Data...

Episode 279 Antarctic sea ice is melting at an unprecedented rate. A collapse like the one we’re seeing was given just a 1 in 700 billion year chance of happening, based on climate models - we basically thought it was impossible. Melting ice in Antarctica will have global scale, knock-on ecological and climate consequences. To address the crisis, five hundred researchers met in Australia for an em...

Episode 278 Concerns about bird flu are rising as two cases in North America suggest the virus is adapting to humans. Evidence of human-to-human transmission is not yet conclusive but public health experts are worried. This year outbreaks have been found in both poultry and dairy cows in the US. Although it only causes mild symptoms in people at the moment, is there a chance it could evolve to bec...

Episode 277 Chimps are an intelligent species, capable of using tools and developing culture - so why have humans surpassed them to such a huge extent? How is it that we are busy exploring space while chimps remain stuck in the Stone Age? It’s long been thought it’s because their culture doesn’t evolve cumulatively, but that assumption has just been challenged. Hear from Cassandra Gunasekaram, the...

Episode 276 Are the COP climate summits doing enough to help us avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change, or are they not fit for purpose, and designed to fail? COP29 is underway in petrostate Azerbaijan, headed by a CEO who was secretly filmed making oil and gas deals. Despite this, the team finds reason for optimism. They also hear from climate philosopher and activist Rupert Read, w...

Episode 275 The origins of the world’s oldest known writing system are being uncovered. Cuneiform was invented around 3200 BC in ancient Mesopotamia, but before it came a much simpler form of writing called proto-cuneiform. Researchers are now shedding light on how writing began along with the cultural factors that spurred on its invention. Just as the rather disappointing COP16 biodiversity confe...

Episode 274 World leaders are in Colombia for the COP16 biodiversity summit. As delegates hash out a path forward, have we actually made any progress to protect global biodiversity since they last gathered?  What would a Trump presidency mean for the climate? With the US election taking place on 5th November, two climate experts weigh in with their concerns. Leah Stokes works on climate policy at...

Episode 273 The mystery of “Well Man”, an ancient cold case, has just been solved. A Norse saga tells that in 1197, in the midst of a Viking raid, warriors dumped a body in a well inside a castle. Over 800 years later, archeologists recovered a body from that very well – but didn’t have the technology to show it was the man from the saga… until now. Some welcome good news about the climate. Energy...

Episode 272 SpaceX has made history with its Starship rocket, the largest rocket ever built and one that’s hoped to eventually take us to Mars. In its fifth test, SpaceX successfully returned the rocket’s booster back to the launchpad and caught hold of it – an engineering feat of great finesse. But how close are we to putting crew on the rocket–- and when will it take humanity to the Red Planet?...

Episode 271 If we overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming, there is no going back. The hope has long been that if - and when - we blow past our climate goals, we can later reverse the damage. But there’s no guarantee we can bring temperatures back down, according to a paper published in Nature this week. The report suggests it would take decades to get back to normal - and some of the more devasta...

The great auk was a flightless bird which was last spotted in Iceland in 1844. It is the subject of the book The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction. Written by Gísli Pálsson, an Icelandic anthropologist and academic, the book offers vital insights into the extinction of the species through accounts from the Icelanders who hunted them.  Pálsson is on the...

Episode 270 There may be hope for the survival of coral reefs, a vital part of the global underwater ecosystem that is under massive threat from climate change. At 1.5 C degrees of warming we’re at risk of losing 70-90 per cent of coral - and more than 99 per cent is estimated to die off at 2 degrees. But new research suggests corals may be more adaptable and resilient than we thought. Hear from t...

Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World is a book about an 18th century mathematical rule for working out probability, which shapes many aspects of our modern world.  Written by science journalist Tom Chivers, the book has made it onto the shortlist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. In the lead up to the winner’s announcement, New Scientist books...

Women have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to have more sensitive noses, sharper hearing at high frequencies, and longer life expectancy than men. But why have women's bodies been so under-researched? It’s one of the many questions Cat Bohannon raises in her book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.  Shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book...

Why We Die is a book about ageing and death, written by Nobel Prize-winning biologist and former president of the Royal Society, Venki Ramakrishnan. Venki is on the shortlist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. In the lead up to the winner’s announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets all six of the shortlisted authors. In this conversation, Venki explores humankind’s...

As the heated race to settle humans on Mars continues, is it really a good idea? And what are the biggest challenges to making interplanetary life a reality? These are the questions Kelly and Zach Weinersmith explore in their book, A City on Mars. The pair have been shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, and ahead of the winner's announcement, New Scientist books...

How often do you upload a picture of yourself online? And what happens to that photo long after it's been posted? The truth may shock you, as we find out in this episode. In Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy, New York Times journalist Kashmir Hill investigates the world of facial recognition technology and its implications for privacy. The book trac...

Episode 269 Could we re-freeze the Arctic… and should we? The Arctic is losing ice at an alarming rate and it’s too late to save it by cutting emissions alone. Geoengineering may be our only hope. A company called Real Ice has successfully tested a plan to artificially keep the region cold - but what are the consequences and will it work on the scale we need? Octopuses and fish have been found hun...

Episode 268 Research has long linked loneliness to surprising health conditions, including diabetes and some cancers. The assumption has been that loneliness in some way causes these issues, perhaps through increased stress or inflammation. But in a study of tens of thousands of people’s biomedical data, that link has gotten more complicated. Where does this leave the relationship between loneline...

Episode 267 The remains of an ancient Neanderthal man discovered in France may be one of the last members of a lost line. Researchers analysing the DNA of the fossil nicknamed “Thorin” (named after the dwarven king in the Hobbit) made the surprising discovery that he’s possibly one of the last of his line. He may have been part of a group that lived in isolation for 50,000 years. How can we tell c...