Babbage from The Economist (subscriber edition)

Few materials have had such an influence on humanity as plastic. But as a result, tiny fragments, known as microplastics, have become ubiquitous in the environment. They have been found in Earth’s most pristine environments, from Antarctica to the deepest ocean trenches. And researchers have even detected microplastics in human blood and breast milk, and in organs such as the heart and the brain. How worried should you be about their impact on human health?Hosts: The Economist’s Alok Jha and Gilead Amit. Contributors: Mark Miodownik of University College London; Douglas Walker of Emory University; and The Economist’s health-care correspondent, Slavea Chankova. Read more about new ways to recycle plastic and how to manage waste better.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The internet is awash with clever fitness hacks, fad diets and home remedies that claim to help you live a longer, healthier and happier life. But how well do these promises hold up to scientific scrutiny? And what about the vices you’re told to avoid? This week, our correspondents consider the evidence on three types of food that have been linked to health concerns: butter, ultra-processed foods and red meat. How bad for you are they, really?This episode is part of our new “Well informed” series on Babbage. Every few months we’ll scrutinise the evidence behind some of the health or wellness trends making headlines. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s Ainslie Johnstone, Shailesh Chitnis and Slavea Chankova.Subscribers to The Economist can find “Well informed” articles on our website or app every Saturday.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

In this discussion, AI writer Alex Hern delves into the environmental impact of AI systems, detailing the energy consumption of data centers. He highlights the paradox of AI's potential to both harm and help the climate, with applications ranging from optimizing electricity grids to detecting methane leaks. They also tackle the ethical considerations of AI's energy demands, emphasizing the need for sustainable practices. Lastly, Hern explores how responsible deployment of AI could play a pivotal role in mitigating climate change.

President Donald Trump has announced that he wants to send Americans to plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars. The only rocket which currently stands any chance of making that happen is the enormous spacecraft being developed by Elon Musk, one of the president’s new advisors. Mr Musk has pledged to send uncrewed missions to Mars by the end of 2026, ahead of the first astronauts in early 2029—just before President Trump is supposed to leave office. But many challenges remain. Will his company, SpaceX, be able to make its Starship rocket work in time? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, with senior editor Oliver Morton. Contributors: Peter Hague, an astrophysicist who writes the “Planetocracy” blog; Volker Maiwald an engineer at the German Aerospace Centre.For more on this topic, check out an episode from last year which examined Starship’s role in the US-China Moon race. Also, as an Economist subscriber, listen to our recent episode of “Checks and Balance” which asks whether Elon Musk is remaking America’s government or breaking it.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Natasha Loder, Health Editor at The Economist, joins Charles Brenner, a metabolism and aging researcher, and Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist from NYU, to discuss the frontier of human enhancement. They explore the ethics of gene editing, brain implants, and performance-enhancing drugs. The conversation raises questions about redefining aging, the societal impact of enhancement technologies, and the need for regulation in this evolving field. With insights into innovations and personal journeys, they delve into both the potential and pitfalls of becoming 'superhuman'.

Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 30 million people around the world and there is no cure. For decades, research on the neurological condition has been focused on proteins known as amyloid and tau, which build up in the brains of people and prevent neurons from functioning properly. But treatments that focus on flushing those proteins out of the brain have so far proved underwhelming. A growing number of scientists, however, have a radical alternative theory. What if a virus is to blame? What if infections are the triggers that cause the build-up of amyloid and tau in the first place? Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, with data and science correspondent Ainslie Johnstone. Contributors: Ruth Itzhaki of the University of Oxford; Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University; and John Hardy of University College London.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Geoffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of artificial intelligence and a Nobel laureate in Physics, discusses the stunning evolution of AI, likening its cognitive abilities to those of the human brain. He reflects on his early work in deep learning and neural networks while contemplating the swift advancements in AI technology. Hinton emphasizes the balance between AI's potential benefits in healthcare and education against its existential risks. With insights on language models and the significance of memory, he paints a vivid picture of an AI-driven future.

In 2012 scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva found the Higgs boson. Things have been quiet since then on the “epic discovery” front—but that doesn’t mean the thousands of physicists working there have been idle. The collider is undergoing a years-long upgrade to make it even more powerful, so that it can probe even deeper into the fabric of our reality. When the LHC is eventually reborn as the “High-Luminosity LHC” by the end of the decade, it will begin a new chapter of discovery. We speak to the incoming boss of CERN to find out if the machine will finally lift the veil on the “new physics” that scientists have been searching for for decades.Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, travels to the LHC at CERN in Geneva, where he meets the next director-general Mark Thomson, plus many of the scientists and engineers who are working on the LHC’s big upgrade. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

The world was shocked in 2018 when He Jiankui, a Chinese biophysicist, announced that he had helped to produce two girls whose genetic code he had edited when they had been embryos. His aim had been to tweak a gene that sometimes confers protection against HIV infections. No one had ever used the CRISPR gene-editing tool in reproduction before and it was completely untested in embryos. Scientists around the world condemned the work as wildly premature and possibly dangerous—the Chinese authorities agreed and Dr He was imprisoned for three years. Now, more than six years later, Dr He is back. And he still wants to prevent medical conditions by editing human embryos. But will the world ever be ready for this use of gene editing? Or will newer methods of editing human genes prove more promising?Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Emilie Steinmark, science correspondent at The Economist; Chinese researcher He Jiankui; Henry (Hank) Greely of the Stanford Centre for Biomedical Ethics; Panicos Shangaris of King's College Hospital.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Translation is tricky business—not least when your subject belongs to a different species. But as evidence mounts that many animals are capable of rich, complex communication, scientists are trying to bridge the inter-species gap. Already, artificial intelligence has proved a valuable tool. But one ambitious technologist is trying to take these models even further. Could his new initiative one day allow humans to speak to their fellow animals? And what else might people learn in the process?Host: Kenneth Cukier, The Economist’s deputy executive editor. Contributors: Denise Herzing, founder of the Wild Dolphin Project; Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Earth Species Project, and The Economist’s Abby Bertics.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.