University of Cambridge

The Big Bang, Time Travel, and Black Holes – with Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes Is time travel possible? What does a black hole actually do to light? What does ‘galactic cannibalism’ mean? Honour de Pledge speaks to Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes, authors of ‘A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos’ and ‘The Cosmic Revolutionary’s Handbook: (Or: How to Beat the Big Bang)’ about a tiny,...

Imagining aliens – with Wallace Arthur What will aliens look like if we find them? Could a planet be entirely purple? Do skeletons have to be made of bone? Rebekah King speaks to evolutionary biologist and science writer Wallace Arthur about his book ‘The Biological Universe, Life in the Milky Way and Beyond,’ which was published by the Cambridge University Press in 2020. This is a Cambridge Unive...

There is No Planet B – with Mike Berners-Lee What mindset should we have about the global climate crisis? Sophie Carlin speaks to expert in carbon footprinting, Mike Berners-Lee, about the new updated version of his book ‘There is No Planet B’ about climate change, cooperation, and the possibility of not only saving the world, but building a far better, brighter future for all. Mike Berners-Lee fe...

Body Image for Young People – with Charlotte Markey How can young people improve their body image in an age of social media? Jesimiel Akinsuyi speaks to Charlotte Markey, author of both the ‘Body Image Book for Girls’ and the ‘Body Image Book for Boys,’ about her motivations for writing both books, what body image means, and how it is affected by social media. Music by Coby O’Brien Produced by Reb...

We're delighted to be able to share with you the highlights of the University of Cambridge's Centre for Science and Policy's fifth podcast season, which explores how science advice, data and evidence are used by decision makers in government. This series has been produced in partnership with the research project Expertise Under Pressure, part of the Centre for the Humanities and Social Change at t...

Counter Speech and Online Harm – with Stefanie Ullmann What is ‘counter speech’ and is it a more powerful alternative to censorship? Scarlett Croft talks to Stefanie Ullmann about her research into harmful online content and strategies for combatting prejudice and hate. Scarlett also asks about how automated systems like Siri and Alexa should be programmed to respond when spoken to in an aggressiv...

Animals in Biomedical Research: Replacement, Refinement, Reduction - with Selina Ballantyne Will we ever be able to stop using animals in the laboratory? This episode, Rebekah King talks to Selina Ballantyne about the ways in which animal testing is being replaced, refined, and reduced such that good science and good animal welfare can go hand in hand. Find out more at the Cambridge Festival 2022...

Recipes for Saving the Planet – with Dana Ellis Hunnes What can students do to help the planet? Sophie Carlin speaks to nutritionist and climate change expert Dana Ellis Hunnes about her new book Recipes for Survival: What You Can Do to Live a Healthier and More Environmentally Friendly Life and gets the best advice for students who want to make a difference to the planet’s health. A big thank you...

In the final episode of our season, Science Advice & Government, host Dr Rob Doubleday is joined by Sharon Peacock, Director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium and Professor of Public Health and Microbiology in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, and James Wood, Head of Cambridge Vet School and infectious disease epidemiologist. The episode explores how science advice...

How have scientists contributed to UK government decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic? What are the structures and mechanisms that have drawn science into the policy process? In today’s episode we’re exploring what the past two years have been like for the scientists involved in government and SPI-M, the experts providing the advice based on COVID modelling and epidemiology. In today’s epi...

This special edition of Crossing Channels was organised in response to the invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022. It covers how the Ukrainian people, policymakers, and government have responded during the first ten days of the war, its geopolitical context and implications, and the scale of the information war taking place, within both Ukraine and Russia. This episode is hosted by Rory C...

The UK is currently one of the most regionally unequal countries in the developed world. The government's White Paper on Levelling Up sets out 12 “missions” to increase economic opportunities across all regions. The UK is far from the first country to try and “level up” regional areas. Countries including France, Germany and China are also making efforts to tackle similar regional inequalities. Bu...

This episode discusses the potential of digital technologies to change infrastructure priorities in developing countries. Experts from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST) consider what counts as infrastructure, whether ‘leapfrogging’ is a useful term, emerging digital divides, and the impact of foreign (particularly American a...

Hope versus fear in artificial intelligence In this third episode of Crossing Channels, experts from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), discuss the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), including why we need to care about it, who is responsible for it, and whether there’s a double standard for AI and humans. Host Rory Cell...

Why have economists ignored nature for so long - and now they have discovered it, are they measuring it correctly? This episode tackles the issue of incorporating nature into economic measurements. These include whether there is still a trade-off between economic growth and the environment, what is still missing from economic measures, and how to get academics and policymakers to work together. Th...

Why has it become so hard to run government? The role of civil servants and decision-making in society today. This episode tackles the issue of running government in the modern age. These include how the public perceptions of the government have changed, why there are so many civil service reforms, and what governments learn during crises. This episode is hosted by Rory Cellan-Jones, and features...

In today's uncertain world, the sixth episode of our series on science advice and government, explores how governments can better understand and respond to unforeseeable and challenging extreme risk scenarios, such as cyber hacking, biological hazards, climate change, and future pandemics, following the COVID-19 outbreak. Host Dr Rob Doubleday is joined by: -Lord Martin Rees, the UK's Astronomer R...

In the fifth episode of our new series on science advice and government, host Dr Rob Doubleday discusses how SAGE and modelling advice were used during the Nepal Earthquake in April 2015. He's joined by James Jackson, an Earthquake Geologist and Professor in Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and Professor Emily So, an Artchitectural Engineer and Director of the Cambridge University Ce...

In the fourth episode of our series on science advice and government, we look back a few decades at what lessons were learnt following the BSE outbreak (Mad Cow Disease) in the 1980s and 1990s. Plus how it led to the establishment of the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Host Dr Rob Doubleday is joined by Dame Julia Unwin, who was appointed Deputy Chair of the FSA in 2003. Dame Julia's role was to co-l...

What’s cancer got to do with crabs, artist Jackson Pollock, and artificial intelligence? It’s not a riddle; these are some of the things we’ll explore with surgeon Grant Stewart, computer scientist Mateja Jamnik and radiologist Evis Sala from the Mark Foundation Institute for Integrated Cancer Medicine. In this episode, we’ll discover how artificial intelligence is making it easier for doctors to...

In the third episode of our new podcast series on science advice and government, host Dr Rob Doubleday discusses the Ebola outbreak of 2014 and how the government used science and evidence in helping to tackle it. He's joined by three people who were closely involved at the time: -Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College Cambridge, who was Chief Medical Officer for England from 2010-2019 and c...

Is antimicrobial resistance (AMR) the greatest threat to human health? In this episode, we discuss how the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in humans and agriculture have accelerated bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens’ ability to mutate and develop resistance against the treatments designed to curb and control them. We talked with molecular biologist Stephen Baker, virologist Ian Goodfello...

Which scientific voices are heard in government? How one voice or many shapes information that is informing decision making? What structures and institutions have evolved over recent decades to try and make that process more open, more diverse and more robust? In the second episode in CSaP's series on science advice and government, host Dr Rob Doubleday is joined by Dr Claire Craig, Provost at The...

What causes dementia? And how do we diagnose and treat it? Is there anything we can do to stop ourselves from developing dementia? These are the crucial questions we’ll be exploring with clinical neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian, sociologist Richard Milne, and neurologist James Rowe. In this episode, we’ll find out more about what dementia actually is, some surprising factors that increase a per...

In the first episode of our new series, we’re exploring how science advice, data and evidence are used by decision makers in government. Throughout today’s episode, host Dr Rob Doubleday is joined by Sir Patrick Vallance, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, and Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School. Season 5 is produced in partnership...