Why? with Emma Kennedy

Parasites. Just saying the word makes most of us recoil - we think worms, infestations, grim biology lessons and maybe even mind controlling fungi. But what if everything we thought we knew was wrong? The truth is closer, and far weirder, than you’d ever imagine. This week, Emma Kennedy is joined by Emmitt Jolly, Professor of Biology at Case Western University , for a deep dive into the strange, m...

Seed oils are everywhere. They’re in your chips, your salad dressing and even in your biscuits. But in the age of social media, they’ve become the latest food villain. Accused of causing everything from heart disease to chronic inflammation. Suddenly that drizzle of sunflower oil has become a battleground over health, science and who we choose to believe. Today on Why? Emma Kennedy is joined by Dr...

Forget spa music and whale songs, turns out the real relaxing music might be a blast of heavy metal. Studies suggest towns with more metal bands have fewer alcohol-related hospital visits and even lower mortality rates. Today on Why? , Emma Kennedy is joined by journalist for Independent Nurse and self confessed metal head Sumaiyah Uddin to find out how mosh pits could be the path to mental wellbe...

Why do some people love the gym while others hate it? A new study suggests it might be about personality, not willpower. Dr Flaminia Ronca , researcher at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health at UCL, joins Emma Kennedy to find out if there’s a workout your brain is secretly wired to love or whether loathing spin class is perfectly normal! Advertisers! Want to reach smart, engaged, influenti...

For years, sunscreen was the dullest health advice around: slap it on, don’t burn, lower your cancer risk. Easy. But in the weird world of TikTok wellness hacks and alarmist headlines, SPF has been recast as something sinister. This week on Why , Emma Kennedy is joined by Brian Diffey , Emeritus Professor of Photobiology at the University of Newcastle , to unpack how sunscreen actually works and h...

From phones to laptops to smartwatches, modern life is constantly pulling us in a dozen directions at the same time and it’s leaving us stressed, distracted, and less productive than ever before.  This week on Why , Emma Kennedy is joined by Professor Gloria Mark , Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California , Irvine and author of Attention Span , to uncover...

What if the next health crisis isn’t a new virus, but the slow erosion of the medicine we’ve taken for granted? For nearly a century, antibiotics have been the quiet miracle behind modern medicine, making infections survivable and surgeries safe. But now superbugs are rising, resistance is spreading, and that invisible shield is cracking. This week Emma Kennedy is joined by biologist Liam Shaw joi...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. Protein has taken over the supermarket. Crisps, popcorn, cereal and even coffee now boast about their protein content. But do we actually need so much of it in our diet?  This week Emma Kennedy is joined by Dr Dan Baumgardt , GP and lecturer in neuroscience and physiology at the University of Bristol to sort the science from sales pitch and find out why we’...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. Evolution has shaped us into the odd-looking, brilliant creatures we are, but how exactly did it do it? Why did our genetics settle on five fingers? And why do scientists have a perfect explanation for testicles but are completely stumped by our pointy chins? This week, Emma Kennedy is joined by Dr. Max Telford , Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy...

Microplastics are turning up everywhere; in our lungs, blood, even our brains. They’re tiny, toxic, and almost impossible to avoid. So what can we do about them? Today, Emma Kennedy speaks to Dr Antaya March and Prof Fay Couceiro from the University of Portsmouth to find out what this means for our health and the long term consequences of ignoring this tiny problem.  WHY? is presented by Emma Kenn...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. Weight-loss injections are reshaping more than waistlines. They’re changing the world we live in. Drugs like Ozempic were developed to treat diabetes, but now they’re transforming how we eat, fly, dress and maybe how we think about our impulses. This week, Emma Kennedy is joined by Professor Giles Yeo , obesity researcher at Cambridge University and author...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. How does fake news pull us in? From deepfakes to dodgy headlines, we’re constantly navigating a minefield of misinformation. It spreads faster than the truth, plays on our emotions, and can confirm what we want to believe.  This week, Emma Kennedy is joined by Dr. Gordon Pennycook , Associate Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and Dr. David Rand...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. What is laughter? A joyful cackle, a nervous snort, a full-body wheeze. It’s how we react when life gets silly, or sometimes painful, or uncomfortable. We laugh to connect, to disarm and, sometimes, to survive.  This week, Emma Kennedy is joined by Laura Lexx , professional comedian with an actual masters in stand up comedy and host of Lexx Education , to h...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. Sex, attraction, identity all bring up strong debates. For years, scientists have tried to pin down why we fancy who we fancy. Genes? Brain chemistry? Vibes? There’s no tidy answer – but could we be on the cusp of a scientific explanation? This week, Emma Kennedy is joined by geneticist and neuroscientist Dr Kevin Mitchell , associate professor at Trinity C...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. When Jurassic Park roared into cinemas in 1993, it wasn’t just the dinosaurs that captured our imaginations – it was the idea that science might one day bring the prehistoric creatures back to life. Three decades and seven blockbusters later, the science of resurrection is edging closer to reality. Could we really bring back the dinosaurs? This week, Emma K...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. Why are we so obsessed with being special? Today, we’re diving into the strange modern urge to define ourselves at all costs. Online, in politics and beyond identity has become our currency. But as the world tilts into climate collapse, A.I. dread, and whatever mess Donald Trump’s cooking up, maybe it’s time to ask: who are we without all the labels? Emma K...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. Billionaires want to live forever – and they might just pull it off. From young blood transfusions to gene-hacking and basement labs chasing eternal youth, the ultra-rich are pouring fortunes into cheating death. But if Bezos, Thiel and co get to slow ageing, what happens to the rest of us?  Emma Kennedy talks to Richard Faragher , Professor of Biological G...

We’re back and we’ve got questions. Are you a doomscroller? Are you endlessly flicking through a feed of memes, photos of your coworker’s holidays and articles you’ll never read? It seems harmless at first – but what if it’s rewiring how we think? This week, Emma Kennedy talks to world leading cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Earl K. Miller , the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, to find out w...

We’re back and we’ve got questions. From misdiagnosed heart attacks to the gaslighting of chronic pain, women’s health has been stuck in triage for far too long. Women are told to trust the system – but what if the system was never built for them in the first place? This week, Emma Kennedy talks to TV presenter and author of It’s Probably Nothing: Critical Conversations on the Women’s Health Crisi...

We’re back and we’ve got questions. We always imagine first contact with aliens as a conversation. But what if talking is the problem? How could we ever prepare for the awkward opening lines of interstellar diplomacy? Well, here on Earth, we might already have a clue: the octopus. They learn, play, and can even recognise human faces. So could our eight-tentacled friends help us understand intellig...

We’re back and we’ve got some questions. The rules around sex are changing: what was once considered taboo is becoming the norm – and even The Guardian is dishing out kinky tips to their readers. Why are we now more honest about our sexual desires than ever before? Why are so many of us willing to engage in these non-traditional desires?  Emma Kennedy talks to psychosexual therapist Dr Kate Moyle,...

There’s a new series of WHY? coming very soon… but in the meantime, try a bite-sized sample of our brand new CRIME SCENE . Every week ex-Met Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe and former Mirror editor Alison Phillips lift the lid on how criminal investigations really work. In our debut episode: The horrific shooting of an innocent nine-year-old girl in Dalston in 2024 laid bare bitter rivalrie...

Phobias are the most common anxiety disorder in the world. We’re very familiar with the likes of arachnophobia and claustrophobia, but some people suffer from more unconventional, even bizarre fears – say, a terror of buttons or even spoons. Where do they come from? What do they mean? And can they be treated?  Emma Kennedy talks to Joseph E. LeDoux , Professor of Neuroscience at NYU, and clinical...

The concept of eternal life is a long-standing fantasy in science fiction, but will it ever be possible to upload our consciousness to an external host –  or even a robot? Will there be a day when we can upload the very essence of our being, the things that make us human, into some kind of machine? And if we could, what would it do to our humanity?  To find out, Emma Kennedy is joined by Anil Seth...

Space is fundamentally quite weird, and seldom as weird as the thousands of “exoplanets” that – we’ve fairly recently discovered – exist outside of our solar system. We’re all familiar with the likes of Tatooine from Star Wars and Krypton from Superman, but what are the REAL exoplanets like? And how do filmmakers turn these planets from figments of imagination into something immersive that look an...