Ian Sample

speaker

2,123 appearances 29 recordings 3 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 3d ago

Ian Sample’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 29 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 8.

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Science Weekly · Four types of thinker, the cyclosporiasis outbreak, and the UK’s biggest telescope threatened · 6 Aug 2026 podcast

Jodrell Bank at the moment is involved with work on dark energy, dark matter, the sort of invisible substance that you see clumping around galaxies. matched

It's also looking at how planets evolve, how galaxies evolve. matched

It is often the fundamental science that leads to the big step changes that drive what we can call progress. matched

I mean, some people might say, well, where is progress in technology? matched

But the shift in emphasis there and the loss of some of this more... matched

Fundamental research is something that we may end up paying for in the longer term, or at least not having the expertise in the UK and not having the sovereign facilities in the UK anymore. matched

Well, I think for Jodrell Bank, there are certainly some possibilities. matched

They are very connected to the University of Manchester. matched

The University of Manchester is very keen to keep the Lovell telescope going, but show me a university in the UK that has any money. matched

But one option, one idea may be to go to the users of Jodrell Bank and say, matched

We don't have any money. matched

Can you contribute? matched

And this means going globally, essentially cap in hand. matched

Now, at the moment, telescopes are shared essentially for free. matched

And so that would kind of break a precedent. matched

It's an option, though. matched

Another thing is that Jodrell Bank has really recently shown that they can track space debris and space objects by basically bouncing radar off these objects. matched

And Jodrell Bank can detect that. matched

And so that could actually be a really useful facility for space agencies. matched

So it may be that they could get some funding from space agencies who want to be able to track space debris. matched

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