Discovery
Episodes
Touch hunger
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond explores our experience of touch hunger, and asks if we have enough touch in our lives. Covid-19 and social distancing have changed ho...
Megadrought in Chile
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Drought is a massive problem for Chile. Jane Chambers has been living in the capital Santiago for more than ten years and has seen huge changes in tha...
The sting in the tail
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"What’s the point of wasps?" asks listener Andrew, who is fed up with being pestered. For this series, with lockdown learning in mind, Drs Rutherfor...
The Evidence: Covid lessons for safe school reopening
26 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and experts from around the world consider the evidence behind schools, colleges and coronavirus spread. Listeners from India, Cuba, I...
The seeded cloud
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Could you make a machine to make it rain in minutes?" asks listener Alexander from Hampshire, aged 12. For this series, with lockdown learning in min...
The growling stomach
14 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Why do our tummies rumble - and when they do, does it always mean we are hungry?" asks listener James, aged 12. For this series, with lockdown learni...
Return to Mars
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In February 2021, three spacecraft will arrive at Mars. One is the United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter - the first interplanetary probe sent by the...
Liz Seward
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to Liz Seward, Senior Space Strategist for Airbus Defence and Space. Liz's young interest in Science Fiction led to a c...
Professor Emma Bunce
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Emma Bunce, Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics at the University of Leicester, was inspired to study the solar system as a child by a TV programme ...
Frank Kelly
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Long before most of us gave air pollution a second thought, Frank Kelly was studying the impact of toxic particles on our lungs. In a pioneering set o...
On the menu
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Shark, bear and crocodile attacks tend to make the headlines but humans fall prey to a much wider variety of predators every year, from big cats and s...
Human Genome Project's 20th Anniversary
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Rutherford celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of the most ambitious and revolutionary scientific endeavours of all time - the Human Genome Pr...
Brian Greene
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Greene studies the universe at the largest and smallest scales imaginable. When he was just twelve years old, Brian wandered round Columbia Univ...
Jane Goodall
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Goodall, aged 86, reflects on the years she spent living with the wild chimpanzees in Gombe in eastern Tanzania and tells Jim Al Khalili why she ...
Bed
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After a long journey, there’s nothing nicer for Katy than climbing into her own bed. It’s often the first major purchase we make when we grow up a...
Covid-19: Recovery
11 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and a panel of international experts look at the latest research into Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus which is swe...
Toilet
06 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You may call it the toilet, the loo, the privy, the potty, the can or even the bathroom, but whatever you call it, this everyday object has its roots ...
Wine glass
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Have you got one of those wine glasses that can hold an entire bottle of wine? Katy Brand does and she’s even used it for wine - albeit because of a...
The Evidence: Covid 19: vaccines and after lockdown
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and a panel of international experts look at the latest research into Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus which is swe...
Fork
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The fork is essential. Even camping without one is a false economy, in Katy’s experience. Even a spork - with a spoon at one end and a fork at the o...
High heel
15 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Katy Brand loves a high heel. Once known by friends and family for her ‘shoe fetish’, her dad even gave her a ceramic heel that could hold a wine ...
The Evidence: Covid 19: Transmission and South America
13 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and a panel of international experts look at the latest research into Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus which is swe...
Toothbrush
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What is the most personal item you own - one you don’t want anyone else using?For Katy Brand it’s her toothbrush. So how did the toothbrush become...
Helium
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, celebrates the art and science of the chemical elements. Today he looks a...
The Evidence: Covid 19: Sub-Saharan Africa and Testing
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and a panel of international experts look at the latest research into Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus which is swe...
Aluminium and strontium
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, celebrates the art and science of the chemical elements. Today he looks a...
Gold and silver
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Sella, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London, celebrates the art and science of chemical elements. In this episode he l...
The Evidence: Covid 19: ending lockdowns
16 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and her panel of scientists and doctors analyse the latest science on the coronavirus and answer the audience’s questions on the imp...
Science of Dad
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Whilst most men become fathers, and men make up roughly half the parental population, the vast majority of scientific research has focused on the moth...
Ignaz Semmelweiss: The hand washer
04 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lindsey Fitzharris tells the story of Ignaz Semmelweiss, the hand washer. In a world that had no understanding of germs, he tried to apply science to ...
The Evidence: Mental health and Covid 19
02 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Now that more than half the population of the world has been living for a time in lockdown, Claudia Hammond and her panel of psychologists and psychia...
Desert locust swarms
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pictures coming in from East Africa are apocalyptic. Billions of locusts hatching out of the wet ground, marching destructively through crops, and...
Anne Magurran
20 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Anne Magurran started her career as an ecologist counting moths in an ancient woodland in northern Ireland in the 1970s, when the study of biological ...
The Evidence: Young people, lifting lockdowns, USA and Kenya updates
18 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Hammond and a panel of international experts look at the latest research into Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus which is swe...
Richard Wiseman
13 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do you tell if someone is lying? When Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, con...
Professor Saiful Islam
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Not so long ago, all batteries were single use. And solar power was an emerging and expensive technology. Now, thanks to rechargeable batteries, we h...
The Evidence: Taiwan, Vaccines, Africa Preparedness
04 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
International experts discuss the latest research into Covid-19
Elizabeth Fisher: Chromosomes in mice and men
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Fisher, Professor of Neurogenetics at University College London, spent 13 years getting her idea – finding a new way of studying genetic d...
Adrian Owen
24 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Neuroscientist Adrian Owen has spent much of his career exploring what he calls ‘the grey zone’, a realm of consciousness inhabited by people with...
The Evidence: Coronavirus Special
21 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A panel of international experts take a global look at the science of Covid-19. We hear about vaccines, treatments, strategies to contain the virus an...
Professor Martha Clokie
16 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Martha Clokie tells Jim Al-Khalili how she found viruses that destroy antibiotic-resistant bugs by looking in stool samples, her son's nappi...
Demis Hassabis
10 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Al-Khalili finds out why Demis Hassabis wants to create artificial intelligence and use it to help humanity.Thinking about how to win at chess whe...
Isaac Newton and the story of the apple
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The story of how Newton came up with his gravitational theory is one of the most familiar in the history of science. He was sitting in the orchard at ...
Science Stories - Sophia Jex-Blake
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi Alderman tells the science story of Sophia Jex-Blake, who led a group known as the Edinburgh Seven in their bid to become the first women to gra...
Science Stories - Mary Somerville, pioneer of popular science writing
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Somerville was a self-taught genius who wrote best-selling books translating, explaining and drawing together different scientific fields and who...
Stem cells: Hope and hype
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lesley Curwen reports on the magical aura that has been drawing so many people around the world to pay for “regenerative” therapies which harness ...
Stem cell hard sell
03 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Stem cells are cells with superpowers. They can become many different types of cells in our bodies, from muscle cells to brain cells, and some can eve...
The road to Glasgow
27 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change is upon us. In 2018 the IPCC published a report with the most significant warning about the impact of climate change in 20 years. Unle...
Ecological grief
20 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the Earth experiences more extreme weather, and wildlife is dying, from corals, to insects, to tropical forests, more people are experiencing ecolo...
The misinformation virus
13 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this online age, the internet is a global megaphone, billions of messages amplified and shared, even when they're false. Fake science spreads faste...
The silence of the genes
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In summer of 2019 NICE approved the use of a completely new class of drugs: the gene silencers. These compounds are transforming the lives of families...
Alexis Carrel and the immortal chicken heart
30 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Ball tells the story of Alexis Carrel, the French surgeon who worked to preserve life outside the body and create an immortal chicken heart in ...
Ramon Llull: Medieval prophet of computer science
23 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Ball tells the story of Ramon Llull, the medieval prophet of computer science. During the time of the Crusades Llull argued that truth could be...
Ignaz Semmelweiss: The hand washer
16 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Lindsey Fitzharris tells the story of Ignaz Semmelweiss, the hand washer. In a world that had no understanding of germs, he tried to apply science to ...
Madame Lavoisier's Translation of Oxygen
09 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Ball tells the story of Madame Lavoisier; translator of oxygen. At a time when science was almost a closed book to women, Madame Marie Anne Lav...
Galileo's lost letter
02 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Galileo famously insisted in the early 17th Century that the Earth goes round the Sun and not vice versa – an idea that got him into deep trouble wi...
Robin Dunbar
25 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Maintaining friendships is one of the most cognitively demanding things we do, according to Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar. So why ...
Katherine Joy
18 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Joy studies moon rock. She has studied lunar samples that were brought to earth by the Apollo missions (382kg in total) and hunted for lunar...
Sir Gregory Winter
11 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In an astonishing story of a scientific discovery, Greg Winter tells Jim Al-Khalili how decades of curiosity-driven research led to a revolution in me...
Turi King: Solving the mystery of Richard III through DNA
04 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When a skeleton was unearthed in 2012 from under the tarmac of a car park in Leicester in the English East Midlands, Turi King needed to gather irrefu...
Plastic pollution with Richard Thompson
28 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A Professor of Marine Biology who was not particularly academic at school, Richard Thompson went to university after running his own business selling ...
Protecting heads in sports
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The death last week of boxer Patrick Day, four days after he was stretchered out of the ring in a coma, is the latest reminder of how vulnerable sport...
Early diagnosis and research
14 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
James Parkinson described a condition known as the “shaking palsy” over 200 years ago. Today there are many things that scientists still don’t u...
Exercise
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Can exercise help people living with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative condition, with symptoms such as loss of balance, difficulty walking and stiff...
Living with Parkinson's
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
BBC newsreader Jane Hill knows all about Parkinson’s. Her father was diagnosed in t1980s and lived with the condition for ten years — her uncle ha...
Preventing pesticide poisoning
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to a ban on several hazardous pesticides Sri Lanka has seen a massive reduction in deaths from pesticide poisoning, and the World Health Organi...
The power of peace
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Nature red in tooth and claw”. “Dog eat dog”. “Fighting for survival". You may well think that the natural world is one dangerous, violent,...
The power of petite
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Bigger is better, right? An ancient lore in biology, Cope's rule, states that animals have a tendency to get bigger as they evolve. Evolution has cran...
The power of deceit
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Lucy Cooke sets out to discover why honesty is almost certainly not the best policy, be you chicken, chimp or human being. It turns out that underhand...
Patient Undone
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Deborah Bowman reveals how a diagnosis of cancer has transformed her view of medical ethics and what it means to be a patient.As Professor o...
The Great Science Publishing Scandal
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Cobb, Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester, explores the hidden world of prestige, profits and piracy that lurks behind scient...
Erica McAlister
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Erica McAlister, of London's Natural History Museum, talks to Jim Al-Khalili about the beautiful world of flies and the 2.5 million specimens for w...
Richard Peto
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Sir Richard Peto began work with the late Richard Doll fifty years ago, the UK had the worst death rates from smoking in the world. Smoking was t...
Lovelock at 100: Gaia on Gaia
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
James Lovelock is one of the most influential thinkers on the environment of the last half century. His grand theory of planet earth, Gaia, the idea t...
What next for the Moon?
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Moon rush is back on. And this time it’s a global race. The USA has promised boots on the lunar surface by 2024. But China already has a rover e...
Irene Tracey on pain in the brain
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pain, as we know, is highly personal. Some can cope with huge amounts, while others reel in agony over a seemingly minor injury. Though you might feel...
Paul Davies on the origin of life and the evolution of cancer
08 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Physicist Paul Davies talks to Jim al-Khalili about the origin of life, the search for aliens and the evolution of cancer. Paul Davies is interested...
Can psychology boost vaccination rates?
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1950s a batch of polio vaccine in the US was made badly, resulting in 10 deaths and the permanent paralysis of 164 people. Paul Offit, a paedia...
Global attitudes towards vaccines
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Global attitudes towards vaccinations are revealed in the Wellcome Trust’s Global Monitor survey. Our guide through the new data is Heidi Larson, Pr...
Why do birds sing?
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
"What happens to the human voice as we age? If I hear a voice on the radio, I can guess roughly how old they are. But singer's voices seem to stay rel...
Does infinity exist?
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Is anything in the Universe truly infinite, or is infinity something that only exists in mathematics?” This question came from father and son duo...
Why do we get déjà vu?
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
4/6 Part 1: Déjà vu"Do we know what causes déjà vu?" asks Floyd Kitchen from Queenstown in New Zealand.Drs Rutherford and Fry investigate this fam...
Will we ever find alien life?
27 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
3/6 In this instalment of The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Hannah and Adam boldly go in search of scientists who are hunting for ET, spurred...
Why people have different pain thresholds
20 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
2/6 "How fast can a human run and would we be faster as quadrapeds?" This question flew in via Twitter from Greg Jenner.Is there a limit to human spri...
How do instruments make music?
13 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
1/6 "We play many musical instruments in our family. Lots of them produce the same pitch of notes, but the instruments all sound different. Why is thi...
A sense of time
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Our senses create the world we experience. But do animals have a ‘sense’ of time, and does that differ between species, or between us and other an...
Cat Hobaiter on communication in apes
29 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Catherine Hobaiter studies how apes communicate with each other. Although she is based at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, she spends a lo...
Carlo Rovelli on rethinking the nature of time
22 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who became a household name when his book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics became an unexpected international b...
Corinne Le Quéré on carbon and climate
15 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Corinne Le Quéré of University of East Anglia talks to Jim Al-Khalili about tracing global carbon. Throughout the history of planet Earth...
Ken Gabriel on why your smartphone is smart
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jim Al-Khalili talks to Ken Gabriel, the engineer responsible for popularising many of the micro devices found in smartphones and computers. Ken expla...
Donna Strickland and extremely powerful lasers
01 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Donna Strickland tells Jim Al-Khalili why she wanted to work with lasers and what it feels like to be the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics...
Unbottling the past
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine finding a notebook containing the secret recipes of some of the world’s most iconic perfumes? Formulas normally kept under lock and key. T...
California burning
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Paradise burned down last year, it made the Camp Fire the most destructive and deadly in Californian history. A few months earlier the nearby Ran...
ShakeAlertLA - California’s earthquake early warning system
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Los Angeles is a city of Angels, and of earthquakes. Deadly earthquakes in 1933, 1971 and 1994 have also made it a pioneer in earthquake protection –...
From the Cold War to the present day
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For more than 100 years chemical weapons have terrorised, maimed and killed soldiers and civilians alike. As a chemist, the part his profession has pl...
From the Crimean War to the end of World War Two
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of two programmes he looks back to the first attempts to ban the use of chemical weapons at the end of the 19th century. Heavily defeated...
Tracks across time
18 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In a dry creek bed in the middle of the Australian outback is a palaeontological prize like no other: 95-million-year-old footprints stamped in a sand...
Trouble in paradise
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The atoll of Tetiaro is a string of tiny islands in French Polynesia, about 60km away from Tahiti. The islands – known as ‘motus’ to local Polyn...
Back from the Dead
04 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Night Parrot was supposed to be extinct and became a legend among birdwatchers in Australia: a fat, dumpy, green parrot that lived in the desert a...
Eye in the Sky
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this mission, SOFIA is setting out to study Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, by flying into the faint shadow that it casts as it blocks the light fr...