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Project Discovery: Could computer games help find a cure for COVID-19? Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

In a previous episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we discovered how a team of scientists harnessed the combined power of hundreds of thousands of players of the massively multiplayer online game Eve Online to help in the search for exoplanets.

Now, the next phase of this programme, called Project Discovery, is turning its sights from the stars to the coronavirus pandemic.

This week we speak to scientists Ryan Brinkman and Jerome Waldispuhl, and Project Discovery’s creator Atilla Szantner about why they intend to turn gamers into citizen scientists to help find a cure for COVID-19.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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This podcast was supported by brilliant.org, helping people build quantitative skills in maths, science, and computer science with fun and challenging interactive explorations.

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Dr Jacob Bleacher: Why do we need to go back to the Moon? Jul 06, 2020

Show notes

In 1969, Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people ever to walk on the Moon, a feat over the next three and a half years only 10 other space explorers would go on to achieve.

Now it has taken nearly 50 years, but NASA once again has ambitions to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024.

The Artemis Program is a wide-reaching effort by numerous space agencies and led by NASA, with ambitions to not only put human feet on the lunar surface but to build a permanent base there, with a lunar space station in orbit around the Moon.

To find out more, this week we speak to Dr Jacob Bleacher, Chief Exploration Scientist for human exploration at NASA, about how we are going to get there, what effect deep space will have on the astronauts, and why now is the time to go back to the Moon.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Read the full transcription

This podcast was supported by brilliant.org, helping people build quantitative skills in maths, science, and computer science with fun and challenging interactive explorations.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Subhadra Das: What part has science played in racism? Jun 29, 2020

Show notes

Not so long ago, English scientists believed that they could study differences between people and that certain ethnicities were ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than others – of course, white Europeans were put at the top of any list.

In the 19th Century, anthropologist and statistician Francis Galton took this even further when he coined the term ‘eugenics’, the idea that science could better the human race by promoting the spread of certain genes, deemed ‘good’, and by halting the distribution of those deemed bad.

While these Victorian ideas have since been refuted and discarded by the scientific community, there are those in society that turn to race science in an attempt to justify their bigotry and racism.

Subhadra Das has spent the last eight years as a museum curator for the science collections at University College London, specialising in the history of scientific racism and the history of eugenics.

She tells us how Francis Galton’s idea spread through Victorian society, and why it’s important to understand science’s racist history in order for us to move forward.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Read the full transcription [this will open in a new window]

This podcast was supported by brilliant.org, helping people build quantitative skills in maths, science, and computer science with fun and challenging interactive explorations.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

Adam Rutherford: Can science ever be rid of racism?
Pragya Agarwal: When does bias become prejudice?
Robert Elliott Smith: Are algorithms inherently biased?
Caroline Criado Perez: Does data discriminate against women?
Angela Saini: Is racism creeping into science?
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Brendan Walker: Where is the best place to sit on a rollercoaster? Jun 22, 2020

Show notes

Brendan Walker originally trained and worked as an aeronautical engineer, but now has a far more thrilling job title, quite literally - he’s a thrill engineer.

He’s been working with theme parks to help create the most exciting rollercoasters, using design principles to craft extreme, human emotional experiences to the rides.

He tells us why people have a love/hate relationship with rollercoasters, the fine line between fun and fear, how to get your thrills in lockdown and most importantly, where the best place to sit on a rollercoaster might be.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Read the full transcription

This podcast was supported by brilliant.org, helping people build quantitative skills in maths, science, and computer science with fun and challenging interactive explorations.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Leonard Mlodinow: How did Stephen Hawking make science accessible? Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

Two years to the day the great physicist Professor Stephen Hawking was interred at Westminster Abbey, and at the time of his death, we spoke to one of the people that knew him best, Leonard Mlodinow.

Leonard is an American theoretical physicist who worked with Stephen on the books The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time, and his own book chronicling their time together, Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics(£20, Allen Lane), will be released in September this year.

In this republished interview he speaks with BBC Science Focus editor Daniel Bennett about writing together, his qualities, and what they did when they weren’t talking physics.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast

This podcast was supported by brilliant.org, helping people build quantitative skills in maths, science, and computer science with fun and challenging interactive explorations

Read more about Professor Stephen Hawking:

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Pragya Agarwal: When does bias become prejudice? Jun 08, 2020

Show notes

No matter how open-minded we consider ourselves to be, all of us hold biases towards other people.

Dr Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, ex-academic, and a freelance writer and journalist, who runs a research gender equality think tank The 50 Percent Project.

Her new book, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias (£16.99, Bloomsbury Sigma), unravels the way our implicit or 'unintentional' biases affect the way we communicate and perceive the world, and how they affect our decision-making, even in life and death situations.

In this week’s podcast, she explains where these biases come from and why it’s important for us to recognise and unlearn them to help make the world a better, fairer place.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Why you should subscribe to BBC Science Focus

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

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Anthony David: Why is there still such stigma around mental health? Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

Mental health has become a hot topic in recent years, with campaigns asking us to be kind on social media and to reach out to friends who are struggling.

It seems now more than ever, we have a better understanding of what it means when someone is struggling with their mental health, but despite this, some people feel that the stigma surrounding it stops them from getting the help they need.

Professor Anthony David is a neuropsychiatrist at University College London, whose book Into the Abyss (£14.99, Oneworld) tells the stories of patients he has treated and what their cases have taught him.

He speaks to our editorial assistant Amy Barrett about why this stigma exists and whether it’s getting any better.

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Why you should subscribe to BBC Science Focus

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Luck, the paranormal and the Moon landings - Everything you ever wanted to know about…. illusions, magic and the paranormal May 28, 2020

Show notes

Our guest Prof Richard Wiseman is a spectacularly creative scientist who started off his career as a magician before becoming a psychologist. Over the last few decades, Richard has studied the art of deception, parapsychology and the concept of good luck alongside many other aspects of the human mind.

Richard has a hugely popular YouTube channel called Quirkology, with a mere 2.15m subscribers and has written a book called Shoot For The Moon (£20, Quercus), which takes a closer look at the psychology that achieved the Moon landings.

Over two quickfire, 30-minute episodes, Richard tells BBC Science Focus magazine editor Daniel Bennett how to make himself luckier, whether magicians make the best psychologists and why the stories we tell ourselves matter.

And if you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, check out any of Richard’s books at richardwiseman.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @RichardWiseman.

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Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac: Has climate change determined our future? May 26, 2020

Show notes

Christiana Figueres is the former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and it was her work that led to its members signing the 2015 Paris agreement.

Together with Tom Rivett-Carnac, she created Global Optimism, an organization focused on bringing about environmental and social change.

Their book, The Future We Choose (£12.99, Bonnier), reveals that we are on the precipice of two futures: one where net-zero emissions is achieved, and one where it is not, and this week they’re talking to our editorial assistant Amy Barrett about the Paris Climate Agreement, why we need to reduce carbon emissions, and how we all have a role to play in combating climate change.

Read the edited interview –"We stand at the fulcrum between two worlds. It really is a question of choosing what future we wan"t

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast
Why you should subscribe to BBC Science Focus

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Illusions and Magic - Everything you ever wanted to know about... illusions, magic and the paranormal, episode 1 May 21, 2020

Show notes

And if you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, check out any of Richard’s books at richardwiseman.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @RichardWiseman.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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