The world, the universe and us
Dettagli canale
The world, the universe and us
From the evolution of intelligent life, to the mysteries of consciousness; from the threat of the climate crisis to the search for dark matter, The world, the universe and us is your essential weekly dose of science and wonder in an uncertain world. Hosted by journalists Dr Rowan Hooper and Dr Penny...
Episodi recenti
392 episodi
Space 2075: How Humanity Will Live, Work and Make Drugs off-planet | Live Recording at the Royal Society
A special episode all about the future of space exploration, recorded in front of a live audience at the Royal Society in London.
Earlier...
How Jane Goodall changed the world; How the universe ends; How “selfish sperm” affect male fertility
Episode 324
The legendary primatologist Jane Goodall died last week aged 91, leaving behind a remarkable legacy. Her work studying tool u...
Emergency in Antarctica; How movement changes the brain; Why women live longer than men
Episode 323
Temperatures in Antarctica have soared by over 35°C. Scientists are concerned about how quickly things are changing on the co...
Skull rewrites story of human evolution; Autism and Tylenol; discovery of wind coming from black hole
Episode 322
An ancient skull discovered in China may have just rewritten the story of human evolution. It’s widely accepted that the comm...
The evolutionary price we pay for longer lives; the asteroid coming VERY close to Earth; how dinosaurs shaped the ecosystem
Episode 321
Humans live a lot longer than other primates - and much of that is down to our immune system. But there’s a price we pay for...
Why we can't announce life on Mars (yet); The Romans' impact on the British economy; Link between exercise and your microbiome
Episode 320
Was Mars once home to alien life? The evidence is stronger than ever, since NASA’s discovery of rocks marked by patterns simi...
First complete map of brain activity; Queen ant lays eggs of another species; The perils of scrolling while on the toilet
Episode 319
Scientists have created the first complete activity map of a mouse’s brain. Combining brain images from multiple mice, resear...
Scientists discovered a 100,000-year-old organism; Breakthrough brain implant uses AI to treat pain; How climate change leads to revolutions
Episode 318
An ancient organism has been discovered that has been alive for at least 100,000 years. Found in the Siberian permafrost, thi...
Could we end winter illness?; Cold fusion’s comeback; The delicious microbiome of chocolate
Episode 317
Winter bugs are notoriously hard to vaccinate against. But as cold, flu and covid season is about to descend on us once more,...
Climate special: How to fix the climate crisis with Tim Lenton and Kate Marvel
Episode 316
“All of the other planets out there are just complete garbage. The Earth is the only good place.” – Kate Marvel
...
80 years since Hiroshima: Forgotten victims of the atomic bomb
Episode 315
It’s been 80 years since the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war - events that altered the course of history. The co...
Ozempic and Wegovy slow down biological ageing; creation of synthetic bacterium; geology of the Russian earthquake
Episode 314
Weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy have been shown to slow down - or even reverse - the ageing process. In a trial of 84 pe...
AI wins first gold at maths Olympic games; How mitochondria are linked to sleep; Famous psychology trick works on octopuses too
Episode 313
AI has won gold at the world’s hardest maths event. For the first time, AI programs that use entirely natural language like C...
Scientists test engineered microbes to fight disease; Has 1.5 degrees failed?; New theory why we’ve not found aliens
Episode 312
People have been given genetically engineered microbes to prevent a common health condition - and it worked. The gut microbio...
How geoengineering could save us from climate disaster; Have we broken mathematics?; Why exercise reduces cancer risk
Episode 311
Geoengineering could be the best way to avoid catastrophic climate disaster - but there’s a big catch. In the recent Global T...
First full genome of Ancient Egyptian sequenced; Wild killer whales offer gifts to humans; First demonstration of interstellar navigation
Episode 310
An ancient Egyptian's complete genome has been read for the first time. The DNA of a man who lived in Egypt over 4500 years a...
Mice with two dads; perfect your sleep with science; how lizards survived dinosaur-killing asteroid
Ep 309
A groundbreaking experiment in reproductive biology has resulted in mice being born from two biological fathers. By fusing sperm a...
First skull of mysterious human ancestor; Decoding whale language; Heatwaves 20x more likely to happen
Episode 308
An ancient skull discovered in China has been confirmed to belong to a Denisovan. It’s been tough to study this mysterious hu...
Is this the first step to cyborg brains? How drones are reshaping warfare forever; New Vera Rubin observatory goes live
Episode 307
Using new “ultrasoft” electronics, researchers at Harvard have effectively created tadpole cyborgs. A soft bioelectronic devi...
$1 trillion of platinum on the moon; how your brain distinguishes between reality and imagination; rise of the hyperworm
Episode 306
It’s been discovered that the moon is probably home to $1 trillion worth of platinum. Researchers suggest nearly 6500 of the...
The real threat of AI - ethics, exploitation and the erosion of truth
Episode 305
As artificial intelligence grows into more and more aspects of our lives, it seems we’re just at the beginning of the boom. H...
Are smartphones really causing mental illness in teens?; More evidence of alien life; Digital oak trees
Episode 304
It seems the world is on heightened alert about the impact smartphones are having on our children’s brains. But are we right...
China’s carbon emissions fall; norovirus vaccine; chaotic breakup of the solar system
Episode 303
China is becoming a de facto leader in the fight against climate change. Right now it’s the world’s biggest emitter of carbon...
Ocean wonders and the new arguments against deep-sea mining; biophotons emitted from living things; drumming chimps and the origin of religion
We dive into the mysterious world of the deep sea, sparked by a recent executive order aiming to ramp up offshore mineral extraction, as well as new r...
Is our understanding of light completely wrong? Two consciousness theories go head-to-head; decoding dolphin whistles
Episode 301
Our understanding of the nature of light might be completely wrong. The double-slit experiment is one of the most famous expe...
Weekly: Why the climate crisis is an issue of injustice and inequality
Episode 299
In a climate justice special episode of the podcast, the biggest issue of the century is up for discussion. Find out the true impact...
Weekly: First brain engineering in a mammal; landmark in fossil fuel lawsuits, the legacy of Pope Francis
Episode 300
The first genetically engineered synapses have been implanted in a mammal’s brain. Chemical brain signals have been bypassed in the...
Weekly: Have we really just found the strongest evidence for alien life yet?
Episode 298
Big news has just broken - astronomers claim they’ve detected the strongest evidence for alien life yet. The news has got the world’...
Weekly: Dire wolves (not) brought back from extinction; US science in existential crisis; how to pour the perfect coffee
Episode 297
The “de-extinction company” Colossal Biosciences claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction. This is an ancient animal...
Weekly: How plant skin transplants could supercharge crops; China’s pollution win spikes global temperatures; the oldest ivory tools ever found
Episode 296
There’s a strange phenomenon in the plant world that we’ve known about for ages - but have only just figured out how to make use of...
Weekly: A remarkable view of pregnancy; how to waste less time on your smartphone; superacid diamond rain
Episode 295
The changes the body goes through during and after pregnancy have been examined in more detail than ever before. A landmark study is...
Weekly: Life on Mars; biggest dark energy discovery in decades; the mystery of dark oxygen
Episode 294
Markings discovered on rocks from Mars look to be good evidence that microbial life once existed on the Red Planet. NASA’s Persevera...
Weekly: America is turning its back on science and the cosmos; photosynthesis limits; mysterious memory illusion
Episode 293
The future of NASA and of US science is under threat, following cuts made by the Trump administration. Johns Hopkins University lost...
Weekly: Chimps, bonobos and humans have more in common than you might think
Episode 292
Chimps are often seen as our hyper-aggressive ancestral cousins, while bonobos are famously more peaceful and caring. But studies of...
Weekly: How to finally get a good night’s sleep - with science
Episode 291
Who got better sleep - hunter-gatherers or modern-day humans? We’re constantly being told we’re in the midst of an epidemic of poor...
Weekly: Life-saving mice perform first aid; tiny lab-grown human brains; making skyscrapers and hair condition from wood
Episode 290
Mice have been found saving the lives of their cagemates by performing a resuscitation technique similar to CPR. After opening the m...
Weekly: Resurrecting frozen brains; giant asteroid heads to Earth; you really do have a ‘dessert stomach’
Episode 289
Slices of mouse brains have been revived after being in deep freeze, hinting at the future possibility of reanimating humans who hav...
Weekly: Trump’s war on science; How whale song resembles human language; How to boil the perfect egg with science
Episode 288
President Trump has launched what’s being described as an all-out assault on science and medicine. Given America’s impact on global...
Weekly: Is DeepSeek really the ChatGPT killer?; alarming scale of ocean warming; dolphin peeing contests
Episode 287
Chinese AI company DeepSeek unexpectedly stormed onto the scene just a few days ago - a move that has shaken the big US AI companies...
Weekly: The Trump impact on climate and global health; the placebo effect’s evil twin; the mystery of dark oxygen
Episode 286
President Trump has signed executive orders pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement, and out of the World Health Organizat...