The World, the Universe and Us

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#160 Rejuvenation treatments; world to breach 1.5 degrees of global heating Jan 19, 2023

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A cure for ageing, without the price-tag? It might sound too good to be true, but the team digs into new evidence that shows low-frequency ultrasound may rejuvenate cells in our body which are thought to cause age-related diseases.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is missing half of its matter - and the team asks where it’s all gone. They also discuss NASA’s ShadowCam which has taken pictures of Shackleton Crater on the south pole of the Moon, a region of particular interest if humans are to settle on the Lunar surface.

Despite dramatic heat waves over the past few years, the Earth has actually been in a cooling period, known as La Niña, for the last three years. So with an El Niño on the way - a period of warming - the team finds out about the coming climate impacts, and how we might breach 1.5 degrees of global heating.

Oyster mushrooms eat nematodes - who knew? And as the team finds out, they even do it in a pretty gruesome way, using a sort of nerve gas. The question is, can they still be considered vegan?

For a unique take on the climate crisis and the personal responsibility we feel in tackling it, Rowan chats to Assaad Razzouk, author of Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit: What They Don't Tell You About the Climate Crisis. He explains why we shouldn’t worry about going vegan or cutting down on flying, and reveals the real things we should be angry about when it comes to climate change.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Penny Sarchet, Madeleine Cuff, Michael Le Page and Leah Crane. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#159 Aboriginal stories describe ancient climate change and sea level rise in Australia Jan 16, 2023

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In this bonus episode of the podcast, hear an extended interview with Cassie Lynch, a descendent of the Noongar people of south west Australia who’s been studying their storytelling tradition.

Find out how ancient accounts of rising sea levels from the end of the ice age around 7000 years ago have been passed down through aboriginal stories. And discover what we can learn from the events of the past in surviving the current climate crisis.

Interviewing Cassie is writer and theatre maker David Finnigan. Find out more about the study by Patrick Nunn and Nicholas Reid here.

To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#158 Exxon’s 1970s predictions for climate change were super accurate Jan 12, 2023

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Scientists working for oil giant Exxon between 1977 and 2003 accurately predicted the pace and scale of climate change and warned of the harm of burning fossil fuels, while firm’s executives played down the risk. Now Exxon’s quantitative climate projections have been assessed for the first time.

On this special episode of the podcast, host Rowan Hooper discusses the Exxon science with New Scientist environment reporter Madeleine Cuff, and climate scientist Peter Stott. Peter is the author of Hot Air, The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial and is a specialist in climate attribution at the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre. There is also a contribution from climate scientist Michael Mann.

The panel discuss ExxonMobil’s response to the new study, and talk about what we can take from it in terms of not being beguiled by vested interests when pushing for a fast transition to a world free from fossil fuels.

The team also reacts to the news that the head of one of the world's biggest oil companies will be president of the COP28 climate summit later this year.

To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#157 Computer lawyer takes first court case; brains speed up with age Jan 12, 2023

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Will artificial intelligence replace lawyers in the future? The team learns about a new, chat-bot style bit of tech that fights your legal battles for you, and is about to be tested in a real court room. But is it ethical, or even legal?

Gibbons love to sing, but what we’ve just learnt is male and female gibbons also enjoy belting out synchronised musical duets. The team plays some of these delightful sounds, and finds out what this tells us about the evolution of rhythmic capabilities in humans.

There’s good news for those of us who are getting on a bit. The team finds out about the very welcome news that some parts of our brains actually speed up when we age.

Wind turbines today are already pretty massive - some as high as 250 metres tall. But a new type of turbine has been dreamt up that would rival the tallest skyscrapers. The team discusses the type of engineering that will go into this mega wind turbine, if its inventor can find the $1 billion needed to fund its creation.

Stories passed down through aboriginal cultures may provide a roadmap on how to survive the current climate crisis. The writer and theatre-maker David Finnigan speaks to Cassie Lynch, a descendant of the Noongar people of Australia, who’s been studying their storytelling tradition. She reveals ancient knowledge from thousands of years ago, usually only shared among indigenous people.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Penny Sarchet, Madeleine Cuff and Matt Sparkes. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#156: What you need to know in science and culture for 2023 Jan 05, 2023

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To see in the New Year, host Rowan Hooper and the team look ahead to their science and cultural highlights for the coming months.

We start with 2 big planetary science missions due for launch in 2023. JUICE, which will be visiting Jupiter to study some of its moons, and Psyche, which is making a journey to an asteroid made completely of iron.

With covid still causing a huge burden of disease around the world, we find out how treatment of the disease is set to evolve this year, and what we can expect from the development of new vaccines.

2023 also looks to be the year of deep-sea mining, as we search for more minerals to fuel the green-revolution. But will countries regulate the industry in time, before it turns into a new wild west?

And the team explains how our understanding of pregnancy and the earliest stages of life is set to change this year thanks to work that will accelerate the creation of synthetic embryos.

In cultural news, the team looks ahead to an exciting roster of new books coming out this year, including The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz, In Ascension by Martin MacInnes, Saving Time by Jenny Odell, and Breathe: Tackling the Climate Emergency by Sadiq Khan.

In film and TV they discuss Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Dune Part 2, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and the TV adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons In Chemistry. There is particular anticipation for the Netflix adaptation of Cixin Liu’s extraordinary book, The Three-Body Problem.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Alison Flood, Madeleine Cuff, Jason Murugesu, Michael Le Page and Leah Crane. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#155: Our five favourite New Scientist long-reads from 2022 Dec 25, 2022

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A holiday special of the podcast and a free-gift giveaway this week, as we celebrate five of New Scientist’s best front-page features of 2022. As well as discussing the features and why they chose to tackle them, the team chats about the beautiful cover artwork for each story.

First up is the news that AI is helping to decode the lost stories of ancient Mesopotamia, revealing the secrets of ancient cuneiform texts - the world’s first known writing.

Next are the blips recorded by the Large Hadron Collider which have hinted at a potential new force of nature - a discovery which could change physics forever.

The most popular feature story of the year was ‘The Longevity Diet: How knowing what to eat and when can help you stay young’. Real news-you-can-use, this feature highlights a new research-based diet that could increase your life expectancy by up to 20 years.

If you’ve ever struggled with insomnia, you’ll want to read our feature on its causes, which shows that the sleep disorder is now a solvable problem.

And finally is a story which asks, is there a place for consciousness in our understanding of the universe? The team explains the idea that physics needs to embrace subjective experience in order to fully describe and explain the universe.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Cat de Lange, Dan Cossins and Alison George. These premium features are usually only available to subscribers, but as a holiday gift they’ll be free to read from the 25th December to the end of the year.

To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#154: News review 2022 - stand-out moments and funniest stories Dec 21, 2022

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Recorded live online for New Scientist subscribers, in this holiday special the team takes you through their stand out moments of the year, the funniest stories to hit the headlines, and their hopes for 2023 - and they answer questions from the audience too.

For stand-out highlights of 2022, the team discusses Deepmind and its transformative AI AlphaFold which predicted the structures of most known proteins. They celebrate the successes of the James Webb Space Telescope and a recent nuclear fusion experiment that has, for the first time ever, generated more power than it requires to run. They also chat about advances in organ transplants and the amazing discovery of ants which have evolved the ability to treat the wounds of their nest mates.

For their funniest picks of the year, they highlight the story of a fish that evolved to stand up on land then thought “nah”, and went back to living in water. Then there’s the news of researchers who wanted to find out if covid-related loss of smell correlated with negative reviews of scented candles on Amazon. And they discuss North America’s invasion by alien earthworms.

After audience questions, the team looks to the future. From the scientific discoveries spurred on by the covid pandemic, to developments in quantum computing, new innovative ways of producing food in more environmentally friendly ways, advancements in gene replacement therapies and the future of space travel, they discuss the stories they’re most looking forward to next year.

On the panel are Rowan Hooper, Penny Sarchet, Alexandra Thompson, Anna Demming and Sam Wong. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#153: Fusion breakthrough; COP15 report; Shakespeare and climate change Dec 15, 2022

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There’s been an exciting breakthrough in nuclear fusion. For the first time on Earth, a controlled fusion reaction has generated more power than it requires to run, bringing us closer than ever before to a viable way of producing clean energy for the world. So, what’s the catch? The team finds out.

The New Scientist team reports from a worryingly quiet COP15. It’s hoped the biodiversity conference will be an opportunity to set ambitious global goals for nature, to reach the goal of restoring it by 2030. But with a distinct lack of world leaders in attendance, can this vital conference deliver?

We now know how to spot alien spacecraft whizzing through space at warp speed…assuming some advanced civilisation has figured out how to stretch the fabric of spacetime of course. The team finds out about this new research which involves LIGO and gravitational waves.

Shakespeare lived through an intense period of deforestation and climate change, and he referenced a lot of this in his work. Think back to Titania’s speech in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” about the changing seasons, and when Gloucester in Henry IV part 2 says “the seasons have changed their manners”. Shakespeare even described the energy transition from wood to coal as a fuel source. Rowan chats with Shakespearean scholar Randall Martin from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and auditions for the part of Queen of the Fairies.

Acclaimed science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky discusses his latest book, Children of Memory, the story of a fragile human colony on a far flung outpost – and some corvids, which may or may not be sentient.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Penny Sarchet, Matt Sparkes, Madeleine Cuff, James Dinneen and Alison Flood. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#152 Ancient species of human could control fire; complete brain map of fly Dec 07, 2022

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An extinct species of ancient human may have been much more advanced than we first realised. First discovered 10 years ago, Homo neladi had a brain about a third the size of ours and yet it may have done complex things like burying its dead and controlling fire. The team learns about the latest finding from the Rising Star cave near Johannesburg.

Mars has long been described as geologically dead, but new evidence shows it may still be volcanically active. The team learns about a new theory which might explain what created the mysterious trenches in the Cerberus Fossae region of the planet.

The largest complete map of the connections between neurons inside a brain has been made - but it’s not of a human brain. This whole-brain connectome is that of a Drosophila larva - the larva of a fruit fly. The team finds out about this massive undertaking - a stepping stone to describing the brains of more complex animals.

Are penguins self-aware? When we try to answer this question in any animal, we tend to use the controversial mirror method - and that’s exactly what a group of researchers have done. But does it actually work, and can we trust the new findings?

The remains of the last known thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) have been found, 80 years after they went missing. Self-described Australian mammal nerd Jack Ashby of Cambridge University tells the team how this curious mystery was solved. As the author of Platypus Matters, Jack also shares a story about Platypuses, and the “cocktail of misery” in the animal’s poisonous sting.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Penny Sarchet, Leah Crane, Alison George and Michael Marshall. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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#151 COP15: the meeting to save life on Earth; anti-ageing properties of urine Dec 01, 2022

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Following repeated delays, the COP15 biodiversity conference is finally going ahead. On December 7th representatives from most of the countries in the world will meet to reach an agreement on how to address the global biodiversity crisis. There’s already a draft agreement in place, and the team explains the ambitions it lays out. But is this event likely to move the needle?

A species of rat which should have gone extinct has somehow managed to keep going - and now we know why. In a story worthy of Margaret Atwood, the team finds out how the Amami spiny rat continues to survive despite losing its Y chromosome, the one which makes males.

There’s a genuine space race going on, with multiple companies hoping to become the first private firm to land on the Moon. The Japanese mission ispace has hit a delay, but the team explains how a viable lunar economy is now a serious prospect.

Newborn female mice who sniff the urine of other female mice live longer - considerably so in fact. The team finds out what’s going on, and whether the finding applies to humans too…

And Rowan chats with Henry Gee, senior editor at the journal Nature, who has won the 2022 Royal Society science book Prize. He describes his book, ‘A Very Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 billion years in 12 chapters’, as a bedtime story for adults, that tells the greatest story ever - the whole saga of life on Earth.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Chelsea Whyte, James Dinneen, Michael Le Page and Leah Crane. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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