Discovery
Episodes
Wild Inside: The aphid
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The tiny sap-sucking aphid, at just a few millimetres long, is the scourge of many gardeners and crop-growers worldwide, spreading astonishingly rapid...
Wild Inside: The Bearded Vulture
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ominously called the lamb vulture, there are many myths and misconceptions surrounding the bearded vulture. Flying the mountainous ranges across centr...
Wild Inside: The Red Kangaroo
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wild Inside returns for a new series to take a look at some of our planet’s most exceptional and unusual creatures from an entirely new perspective:...
Uncharted: Access denied
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.A young researcher gains access to a secretive data set and discovers a system causing harm to the...
The Evidence: The science of the menopause
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of women around the world experience the menopause each year; it’s an important milestone, which marks the end of their reproductive years....
Uncharted: The gossip mill
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Fry explores two more tales of data and discovery.Gossip and rumour are plaguing a tile manufacturing company. The chatter is pulling morale to...
Uncharted: The happiness curve
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.Do orangutans - or humans - experience a midlife crisis? Hidden deep in the data, two economists h...
Uncharted: The doctor will see you now
04 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.Two couples are brought together by a tragedy and a tatty piece of paper, which reveals a serial m...
Uncharted: The returning soldier
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.In a few specific years across the 20th Century, the proportion of boys born, mysteriously spiked....
The Life Scientific: Michael Wooldridge
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Humans have a long-held fascination with the idea of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a dystopian threat - from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through to...
The Life Scientific: Mercedes Maroto-Valer
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you solve a problem like CO2? As the curtain closes on the world’s most important climate summit, we talk to a scientist who was at COP 28 an...
The Life Scientific: Sir Harry Bhadeshia
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Life Scientific zooms in to explore the intricate atomic make-up of metal alloys, with complex crystalline arrangements that can literally make or...
The Life Scientific: Cathie Sudlow
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Big data” and “data science” are terms we hear more and more these days. The idea that we can use these vast amounts of information to unders...
The Life Scientific: Sir Michael Berry
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Jim Al-Khalili meets one of Britain's greatest physicists, Sir Michael Berry. His work uncovers 'the arcane in the mundane', revealing the s...
The Life Scientific: Sarah Harper
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
People around the world are living longer and, on the whole, having fewer children. What does this mean for future populations? Sarah Harper CBE, Prof...
The Life Scientific: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our primate cousins fascinate us, with their uncanny similarities to us. Studying other apes and monkeys also helps us figure out the evolutionary puz...
The Life Scientific: Edward Witten
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Life Scientific returns with a special episode from the USA; Princeton, New Jersey, to be precise. Here, the Institute for Advanced Study has host...
What's stopping us from exercising in older age?
25 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Exercise in older age is high on the agenda, but the idea that with age comes bags of time and a desire to ‘get out there’ isn’t true for a lot ...
When does sitting become bad for health?
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How many hours do you spend sitting down per day? Six? Maybe eight? Or 10? Between commuting, working and relaxing, sitting can soon add up to hours a...
Putting the Mouth Back into the Body
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A look at the evidence that links the health of our mouths with the rest of our bodies.
Tooth and Claw: Cheetahs
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Hart investigates the fastest land animal in the world – the cheetah! Built for high-speed chases, these spotted cats are slender, with semi-re...
Tooth and Claw: Piranhas
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Hart investigates a frenzied and voracious fish from South America – the piranha! Said to be able to strip their prey to the bone in mere minut...
Tooth and Claw: Great White Sharks
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Hart investigates the most famous and feared predator in all the ocean – the great white shark! With rows of large, serrated teeth, it’s ofte...
Tooth and Claw: Wolverines
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Hart investigates the largest terrestrial member of the weasel family – the wolverine. They’re far more than just a superhero played by Hugh ...
The Life Scientific: Alex Antonelli
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With the world's biodiversity being lost at an alarming rate, Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has made it ...
The Life Scientific: Paul Murdin
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Astronomer Paul Murdin believes a good imagination is vital for scientists, since they're so often dealing with subjects outside the visible realm.Ind...
The Life Scientific: Bahija Jallal
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the most complex medicines available today are made from living cells or organisms - these treatments are called bio-pharmaceuticals and in th...
The Life Scientific: Chris Barratt
23 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Reproductive science has come a long way in recent years, but there's still plenty we don't understand - particularly around male fertility. The relia...
The Life Scientific: Gideon Henderson
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’re used to hearing the stories of scientists who study the world as it is now but what about the study of the past - what can this tell us about ...
The Life Scientific: Deborah Greaves
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve ever seen the ocean during a storm, you’ll understand the extraordinary power contained in waves. On an island nation like Britain, that...
Metamorphosis: Bee brains and the cockroach
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Erica McAlister on the bee intellect and whether bigger brains are always better. Plus cockroaches may be reviled by many people, but Erica discovers ...
The Evidence: Is the world becoming more allergic?
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What are allergies and what is the purpose of them? What can we do to try and prevent them? And what are the best ways of accurately and safely diagno...
Metamorphosis: Soldier fly and desert beetle
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Erica McAlister on the innocuous wasp-like black soldier fly, a crown jewel of a fast-growing insect farming industry that's addressing the urgent nee...
Metamorphosis: Blowflies and dazzling disguise
18 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Blowflies may be some of the most reviled insects on the planet, but as Erica McAlister discovers, they are central to the surprisingly long tradition...
Metamorphosis: Drosophila melanogaster, hoverfly
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Erica McAlister uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable insights from the insect world including the innocuous flies that are Drosophila melanogast...
Metamorphosis: Jumping fleas and mighty mouthparts
04 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Erica McAlister uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable insects from the humble flea whose jump enables them to fly without wings and the mystery o...
The Life Scientific: Harald Haas
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine a world in which your laptop or mobile device accesses the internet, not via radio waves – or WiFi – as it does today but by using light i...
The Life Scientific: Anne-Marie Imafidon
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Anne-Marie Imafidon passed her computing A-Level at the age of 11 and by 16, was accepted to the University of Oxford to study Maths and Computer Scie...
The Life Scientific: Anne Ferguson-Smith
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our genes can tell us so much about us, from why we look the way we look, think the way we think, even what kind of diseases we might be likely to suf...
The Life Scientific: Bruce Malamud
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From landslides and wildfires to floods and tornadoes, Bruce Malamud has spent his career travelling the world and studying natural hazards.Today, he ...
The Life Scientific: Andre Geim
31 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The world around us is three-dimensional. Yet, there are materials that can be regarded as two-dimensional. They are only one layer of atoms thick and...
In search of stardust
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Norwegian jazz musician Jon Larsen was having breakfast one clear spring morning when he noticed a tiny black speck land on his clean, white table. W...
Bodies, brains and computers
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. Evolutionary biolo...
Remote touch
10 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological...
The Evidence: Exploring the concept of solastalgia
08 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Evidence on the BBC World Service, Claudia Hammond will be exploring the concept of solastalgia; broadly defined as the pain or emotional suffe...
Smelly people
03 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological...
Sound solutions
27 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological...
Seeing more
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological...
Sperm counts
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
James Gallagher get's behind the hype to find out if sperm counts are really falling? There are plenty of headlines telling us they are, but also scie...
Psychedelics
05 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
James Gallagher reports on a psychedelic renaissance; a new wave of research testing hallucinogenic drugs like magic mushrooms to treat mental health ...
Fungal pandemic threat
29 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We are familiar with fungal infections like Thrush and Athlete’s Foot, but fungal diseases that can kill are on the increase. The World Health Organ...
Food Insecurity
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Soaring food prices mean putting food on the table is a daily struggle. This is the grim reality for millions around the world. But hunger, so long a ...
Maggots in medicine
15 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After centuries of use in wound-healing, the maggot is back. The rise of the drug-resistant superbug means fresh eyes are focused on the superpowers o...
Lazy guide to exercise
08 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
James Gallagher is on a mission to find out what is the least amount of exercise you can do to still stay healthy. James goes on a Ramblers wellbeing ...
The impossible number
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - but turns out to be utterly essential ...
The mind-numbing medicine
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode will render you oblivious, conked out and blissfully unaware. It’s about anaesthetics: those potent potions that send you into a deep, ...
The resurrection quest
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
‘Can we bring back extinct species?’ wonders listener Mikko Campbell. Well, Professor Fry is pretty excited by the prospect of woolly mammoths roa...
The puzzle of the pyramids
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Great Pyramids of Giza are awesome feats of engineering and precision. So who built them - and how? Was it a mysteriously super-advanced civilizat...
The Case of The Blind Man's Eye
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Close your eyes and think of a giraffe. Can you see it? I mean, *really* see it - in rich, vivid detail? If not - you aren’t alone!We’ve had score...
Our Microbes and Our Health
25 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We are a teeming mass of interconnected microbes and the impact of this microscopic universe on our health, our minds, even our moods, is profound.Mad...
Judith Bunbury: Unearthing the secrets of Ancient Egypt
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Think Sahara Desert, think intense heat and drought. We see the Sahara as an unrelenting, frazzling, white place. But geo-archaeologist Dr Judith Bunb...
The Life Scientific: Clifford Johnson
13 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Clifford Johnson's career to date has spanned some seemingly very different industries - from exploring quantum mechanics around string theory and bla...
The Life Scientific: Rebecca Kilner
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A fur-stripped mouse carcase might not sound like the cosiest of homes – but that is where the burying beetle makes its nest, and where Rebecca Kiln...
The magnetic mystery
04 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified. What, he wonders, is a magn...
The Life Scientific: Tim Lamont
27 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Lamont is a young scientist making waves. Arriving on the Great Barrier Reef after a mass bleaching event, Tim saw his research plans disappear an...
Bad Blood: Newgenics
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are we entering a ‘newgenic’ age - where cutting-edge technologies and the power of personal choice could achieve the kind of genetic perfection t...
Bad Blood: The curse of Mendel
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-19th Century, an Augustinian friar called Gregor Mendel made a breakthrough. By breeding pea plants and observing how certain traits were p...
Bad Blood: Rassenhygiene
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the name of eugenics, the Nazi state sterilised hundreds of thousands against their will, murdered disabled children and embarked on a programme of...
Bad Blood: Birth controlled
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Who should be prevented from having children? And who gets to decide? Across 20th century America, there was a battle to control birth - a battle whic...
Bad Blood: You will not replace us
23 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"You will not replace us" was the battle cry of white supremacists at a rally in Charlottesville in 2017. They were expressing an old fear - the idea ...
Bad Blood: You've got good genes
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We follow the story of eugenics from its origins in the middle-class salons of Victorian Britain, through the Fitter Family competitions and sterilisa...
Tooth and Claw: Cougar
09 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hiding in the shadows across the American continents lives a big cat with many names. From puma to mountain lion to panther to cougar, this animal is ...
Tooth and Claw: Wasps
02 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why do wasps exist? While many see them as unfriendly bees who sting out of spite, their aggression could be interpreted as a fierce form of family pr...
Tooth and Claw: African Wild Dog
26 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a great African predator and a hot-spot on safari, it is hard to believe that only last century, the African wild dog was considered vermin. It's b...
Preparing for the next pandemic
24 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Infectious diseases which cause epidemics and pandemics are on the rise.Claudia Hammond is joined by an eminent panel of disease detectives, who spell...
Tooth and Claw: Komodo dragon
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With nicknames like ‘prehistoric monster’ and ‘living dinosaur’, the Komodo dragon has been well and truly judged by its cover. Its gigantic s...
Wild Inside: The Alpaca
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alpacas may have been domesticated for thousands of years but their native lands are the steep hostile mountains of South America where they continue ...
Wild inside: The Harbour Porpoise
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French get under the skin of the harbour porpoise to unravel this enigmatic and shy aquatic mammal’s extraordinary survi...
Wild inside: Great Grey Owl
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the world’s large owls by length, the Great Grey Owl is an enigmatic predator of coniferous forests close to the Arctic tundra. It's most oft...
Wild inside: The Cheetah
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Zoologist Ben Garrod and veterinary surgeon Jess French delve deep into some amazing internal anatomy to unravel the secrets to survival of some of na...
The puzzle of the plasma doughnut
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do you get if you smash two hydrogen nuclei together? Helium and lots of energy – it's nuclear fusion!Nuclear fusion is the power source of the...
The Riddle of Red-Eyes and Runny-Noses
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sneezes, wheezes, runny noses and red eyes - this episode is all about allergies.An allergic reaction is when your immune system reacts to something h...
The problem of infinite Pi(e)
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Pi is the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Sounds dull – but pi turns out to have astonishing properties and crop up in pl...
The suspicious smell
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why are some smells so nasty and others so pleasant? Rutherford and Fry inhale the science of scent in this stinker of an episode.Our sleuths kick off...
The Wild and Windy Tale
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do winds start and why do they stop? asks Georgina from the Isle of Wight. What's more, listener Chris Elshaw is suprised we get strong winds at a...
The Case of The Missing Gorilla
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
DO WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?Good! But how does that work!?Our intrepid science sleuths explore why some things immediately catch your eye - or ear - whi...
Chi Onwurah
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chi Onwurah tells Jim Al-Khalili why she wanted to become a telecoms engineer and why engineering is a caring profession.As a black, working class wom...
The Evidence: How pandemics end
01 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Six and a half million dead. More than a hundred times that infected. The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the globe. But in the final month...
David Eagleman
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Literature student turned neuroscientist, Prof David Eagleman, tells Jim Al-Khalili about his research on human perception and the wristband he create...
Frances Arnold
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nobel Prize winning chemist Frances Arnold left home at 15 and went to school ‘only when she felt like it’. She disagreed with her parents about t...
Sir Martin Landray
12 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Who could forget the beginning of 2020, when a ‘mysterious viral pneumonia’ emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Soon, other countries were affec...
How Covid Changed Science, part 3
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the third and final part of our series How Covid Changed Science, Devi Sridhar Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University looks at the lega...
How Covid changed science, part 2
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the second of our series How Covid Changed Science, Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University looks at the scientific messag...
How Covid changed science, part 1
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Until 2020 developing a new drug took at least 15 years. Scientists by and large competed with each other, were somewhat secretive about their researc...
Satellites versus the stars
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you look up into the night sky, there are around 7,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth. They’re part of our daily life – essential for thi...
Plant based promises, diet and health
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Giles Yeo learns how to make a Thai green curry with Meera Sodha. This is a recipe without meat or prawns but with tofu and lots of vegetables. If we ...
Plant based promises and sustainability
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Plant Based Promises, Giles Yeo a foodie and academic at Cambridge University, asks how sustainable are commercial plant based products? This is a ...
Plant based promises, rise of the plant based burger
25 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Plant Based Promises, foodie, researcher and broadcaster Giles Yeo looks at the science behind plant based diets and the increasing number of plant...
The mysterious particles of physics, part 3
18 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The smaller the thing you look at, the bigger the microscope you need to use. That’s why the circular Large Hadron Collider at CERN, where they disc...
The mysterious particles of physics, part 2
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 2: Lost in the DarkPhysics is getting a good understanding of atoms, but embarrassingly they’re only a minor part of the Universe. Far more ...