Discovery
An in-depth look at the most significant ideas, discoveries and trends in science, from the smallest microbe to the furthest corner of space. Podcast weekly on Mondays.
The Evidence: Salt
For eons, salt has been crucial to human health, culture, and diet. On this episode of The Evidence, we explore the strange science of salt taste – why it can be sweet, salty, or even a flavour enhancer. We look at how salt keeps our bodies running, and what happens…
Fed: Fine Print
Do YOU know what you're eating? Are you sure?Dr Chris van Tulleken is keen to make good food choices, and buy the best chicken possible for his dinner. High welfare, tasty, and good for the environment, ideally. But it's not as easy as that. How CAN he make good food…
Fed: The Ethical Consumer's Dilemma
We’ve heard about the potential problems around chicken welfare. But how does that square with their impact on the environment?Dr Chris van Tulleken finds out what it takes to produce the most eco-friendly chicken meat possible. And makes a devastating discovery. Welfare concerns, and environmental credentials, often pull in OPPOSITE…
Fed: U OK Hen?
We eat chicken. A LOT of it. We might love the taste, but what about how we're treating those birds?After witnessing first-hand the reality of indoor chicken farming - how most of the chicken we eat is raised - Dr Chris van Tulleken wants to know: are the birds happy…
Fed: A Chicken and Egg Story
So we started farming this bird called chicken, and it spread around the world. But what does it actually TAKE to feed us the amount of chicken we want to consume?100 years ago this was a scrawny, egg-laying bird, only good for a stew once her eggs ran out –…
Fed: The invention of chicken
Dr Chris van Tulleken is on a mission to find out what we’re eating, why, and who or what might be influencing our decisions. And he’s starting his quest to uncover food truths with the most eaten meat in the world, and one of the most numerous animals on our…
Unstoppable: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories…
Unstoppable: Olga González-Sanabria
In her last year of high school, Olga González-Sanabria went on a field trip to the University of Puerto Rico’s school of engineering – and immediately knew that was what she wanted to do. She followed her passion and after university was recruited by Nasa, where she carried out instrumental…
Unstoppable: Asima Chatterjee
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories…
Unstoppable: Florence Bell
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories…
Unstoppable: Nzambi Matee
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories…
Unstoppable: Hedy Lamarr
Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories…
The Evidence: Maternal Health in Malawi
The process of childbirth can be painful yet amazing, but at times and in some places, also very dangerous. Recorded in Malawi, East Africa, Claudia Hammond is joined by a panel of maternal health experts to figure out why it is that the equivalent of a large jumbo jet full…
Obsessed with the Quest: Humpback Heat Run
Underwater cameraman Roger Munns set himself and his team an incredible challenge. In 2008, they visited Tonga to film the biggest courtship ritual of the animal kingdom, the humpback heat run, for the very first time underwater and up close. In the first few days, Roger had intimate encounters with…
Obsessed with the Quest: Inside the Minds of Chimpanzees
Primatologist Catherine Hobaiter has spent more of her adult life in the rain forests of Uganda, with family bands of chimpanzees, than she has with her own human family members. For more than 20 years now she has spent 6 months every year at a remote field station, getting up…
Wild Inside: The Sea Lion
Professor Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French get under the skin (and blubber) of the California sea lion, to crack the key to its success both on land and at sea. Its ability to dive hundreds of meters down, keep warm in icy waters, and run on land, can all…
Wild Inside: The Aphid
The tiny sap-sucking aphid, at just a few millimetres long, is the scourge of many gardeners and crop-growers worldwide, spreading astonishingly rapidly and inflicting huge damage as it seeks to outwit many host plants’ natural defences. With insights and guidance from aphid expert George Seddon-Roberts at the John Innes Centre,…
Wild Inside: The Bearded Vulture
Ominously called the lamb vulture, there are many myths and misconceptions surrounding the bearded vulture. Flying the mountainous ranges across central Asia and eastern Africa, with a wingspan of almost three meters, the bearded vulture is am impressive Old World vulture. Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French are looking…
Wild Inside: The Red Kangaroo
Wild Inside returns for a new series to take a look at some of our planet’s most exceptional and unusual creatures from an entirely new perspective: the inside. Whilst we can learn a lot from observing the outside, the secrets to the success of any animal – whether they swim,…
Uncharted: Access denied
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.A young researcher gains access to a secretive data set and discovers a system causing harm to the very people it is supposed to help. One day a student makes a discovery which, if true, could shake the intellectual foundations of a…