Science Of The Times
Episodes
Where Genome Editing and Artificial Intelligence meet New Species Lie
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Tim and Syma talk to Adrian Woolfson about his new book, “On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological...
Badly Behaving Billionaires
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Badly behaving billionaires can spark scandals that help democracy thrive!Tim and Syma talk to Pepper Culpepper about his new book in which he argues ...
The Science of Christmas
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Happy Christmas everybody! Syma and Tim discuss the science behind Christmas. From too much port to the way that reindeer survive in the cold, this is...
A Little History Of The Earth
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma chat with Jamie Woodward, Professor of Physical Geography, at the University of Manchester about the history of our home planet. They cov...
The Rise and Decline of Us
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma chat with Henry Gee about his two most recent books “The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire: Why our Species is on the Edge of Extinc...
Cracking The Code Of Chronic Pain
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chronic pain is a blight on the lives on many. Recent research has found genes associated with chronic pain, and this has led to the identification of...
The Microbial Majority
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Inside your stomach, on your skin, in your mouth, and up your nose are bacteria. They are abundant and they play a significant role in making you, you...
Entangled Futures: The Science and Promise of Quantum Computing
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Synthesis:Quantum computing has been argued to be the next big thing in computing. But what exactly is it, and is the hype justified? We talk to Prof...
What’s it like to be a bat? How do they see the world?
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma talk to Yossi Yovel who is bringing together the disparate disciplines of ecology and neuroscience to help understand how animals see the...
Playing Lego with chemistry to build structures that could save the environment.
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Omar Yaghi is a chemist with an extraordinary vision. The pioneer of MOFs (metal organic frameworks) - materials built from the molecular equivalent o...
Avian Affairs
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Syma and Tim talk to Professor Joan Strassmann about the social life of birds. We cover a range of topics she writes about in her excellent new book, ...
The Decline of the Primate Handyman
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma talk to Professor Dora Biro about animal behaviour and cognition. Want to know why your kitten behaves differently from you, or discove...
Waspish Behaviour
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this weeks episode, Tim and Syma get the run down on wasps, courtesy of Seirian Sumner, entomologist and behavioural ecologist. Will Syma now forgi...
Planet Hunters: Secrets of the Exoplanet Boom
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma talk to Ray Pirrehumbert, author of Planetary Systems: A Very Short Introduction, about planets orbiting far away stars. They learn how t...
The Madness of the Silicon Valley Ultra-rich
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma talk to Adam Becker about his stunning new book, "More Everything Forever". They explore how the philosophy of effective altruism aligns ...
Fossils and Feathers: Rethinking What We Know About Dinosaurs
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma talk to dinosaur expert, Roger Benson, from the American Museum of Natural History. They learn why there were no small dinosaurs, how the...
New antibiotics are needed to change the game.
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Syma gives the second annual Ibn Sina lecture in Bradford City Hall. The event was hosted by the Muslim Institute and the Lord Mayor of Bradford. Sh...
Jonathan Amos The Voice Behind BBC Science A Day in the Life
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In This episode Tim & Syma talk to Jonathan Amos - recently retired science correspondent at the BBC. Jon talks us through his fascinating journey...
Life’s Left Turn: The Strange Science Behind Molecular Asymmetry
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some biological molecules can be left handed or right handed - the sugars that are found in nucleic acids are right handed, whereas 19 of the 20 ami...
The Good the Bad and the Migrant
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Migration is in the news continuously and everyone has an opinion. What does the science of migration reveal? Tim and Syma talk to Ian Goldin, an expe...
How did the diversity of life come about?
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week Tim and Syma talk to Max Telford, author of The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle published by John Murray. They explore LUCA,...
Science Explainer: Recent Mount Etna Eruption
08 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our latest science explainer release Syma chats to David Pyle, world renowned volcanologist, about the recent Mount Etna eruption.
Question and Answer Time!
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Syma and Tim conduct a Q and A session for the many fantastic questions that have been hitting our email inbox over the last three mon...
The Science Of Football
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Surely there is not much more to football than kicking a ball.? Wrong, There is a whole science behind it. Professor Robbie Wilson explains his work...
Science Explainer: Why is it so hard to kill bacteria?
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this explainer, Syma discusses some of the methods bacteria use to defend themselves from attack from external threats such as antibiotics. These o...
Why Wolves Don’t Change Rivers
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dan MacNulty has studied the wildlife in Yellowstone National Park since 1995. His research, and that of his colleagues, has revealed that the narrati...
Science Explainer: New Funding for US based scientists looking to move to the UK.
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim breaks down a game-changing shift in global science research: as U.S. funding for future research faces uncertainty, UK funding agencies are seizi...
Break Barriers: Women, the Physical Sciences Need You Now!
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this short bonus episode Syma talks to Philipp Kukura. Philipp led the development of a technique called mass photometry which enables tracking the...
Why Ginger Cats Are Mostly Boys (and Why Some Wolves Are Black!)
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this third quick hit explainer of the week. Why are most ginger cats male? Simple genetics — the orange fur gene is on the X chromosome. Males on...
How To Build A Sustainable World
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If we don’t build a more sustainable world our civilisation will collapse, potentially in the coming decades. Paul Behrens spends his time researchi...
AI Undermines Health Science
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In our second quick-hit explainer episode this week, Tim breaks down how AI might be disrupting—not advancing—health science. Is the hype overshad...
Why Is There A Universe? Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this quick bonus episode, Tim breaks down one of science’s most intriguing mysteries as featured in BBC News today: the difference between matter...
The Quantum Revolution: Lee Smolin’s Bold Theory to Unite Physics
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Theoretical physics has two theories at its core that are not straightforward to link – quantum mechanics and general relativity. Lee Smolin, one of...
Special Edition- Can academia provide solutions to threats to biodiversity?
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Biodiversity is under threat, and there are many ongoing efforts to help save it, including from within universities. But are academic contributions d...
Should we fear AI?
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence is a modern-day technology that will impact the way we live much as past innovations like mastering fire, and inventing the pr...
Natural and artificial genetic hybrids: dogs, coyotes and dire wolves. PART 2
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Colossal Bioscience has brought genetic variation back from the grave. It is a remarkable technological achievement, but is it species de-extinction? ...
Natural and artificial genetic hybrids: dogs, coyotes and dire wolves.
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Colossal Bioscience has brought genetic variation back from the grave. It is a remarkable technological achievement, but is it species de-extinction? ...
Will Zombie ants be the last of us?
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus episode in which Tim and Syma discuss how the zombie ant-based creatures seen on popular dystopian future drama Last of Us are based on real f...
SPECIAL EDITION - Interview with David Baker 2024 Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Syma and Tim are joined by Nobel Laureate David Baker, one of the winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on computational protein ...
De-mything the hype around de-extinction
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Colassal says it has de-extincted an animal. Is this a dire wolf or a dire mistake? Join Tim and Syma on this short bonus edition!
Snake venom 'milkers' beware the proteins and not the snake!
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Proteins are the workhorses of life, with thousands overseeing and getting involved in reactions within our cells. Biologists have long dreamed of bei...
How did dogs become our best friend?
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dogs are people’s best friend, but how did that happen? Did we tame them or did they train us, or is it a bit of both? Join us as we discuss dom...
Not all birds are the same
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not all Birds are the same. In analyses of thousands of hours of bird song our guests, Nilo Merino Recalde and Ben Sheldon found predictable variation...
OSIRIS-REx 'Touch and go' and the emergence of life elsewhere in the cosmos!
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
OSIRIS-REx is a space craft that visited the asteroid Bennu, returning samples to Earth in late 2023. The first exciting results from the analyses of ...
Unravelling the secrets of our genes.
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim and Syma’s guests are Gordon Sanghera and Lakmal Jayasinghe of Oxford Nanopore Technologies. They discuss how their elegant technology is transf...
Smart Male Fish Get The Girls!
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Later in this episode, Tim flies solo in the wake of Syma's imminent departure for duties on the west coast of the US!Tim's guests are Ivan Vinogradov...
Hello! Welcome to our new podcast.
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this introductory episode, Syma and Tim introduce themselves and explain what subjects and ideas they hope to bring to their audience, and some of ...