Instant Genius

Many of us have found solace in nature over the last few months, relishing our time outdoors, especially when it was limited to one form of exercise a day. A recent report by the RSPB found that people see access to nature as being important for health and wellbeing during and in recovery from the coronavirus crisis.One man who has always been connected to the natural world is David Lindo. Known by most as the Urban Birder, David is a champion for the wellbeing benefits of wildlife, encouraging us all to get outside and see what we can find, be it in the garden, the city, or the countryside.In this week’s episode of the Science Focus Podcast, David tells us about the human benefits of biodiversity, the need for conservation education, and diversity within the birding community.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 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: Samantha Alger: What can we do to save the bees? Mark Miodownik: Are biodegradable plastics really better than traditional plastic? Neil Shubin: How do big changes in evolution happen? Mark Lynas: Could leaving nature to its own devices be the key to meeting the UK’s climate goals? Andrew Hunter Murray and Dan Schreiber: Is there really no such thing as a fish? Brad Lister: Are we facing an insect apocalypse? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If, like us, you love to read a good science book, (and thanks to this podcast we’ve read a fair few over the years), you’ll probably recognise the feeling of having more questions about its subject at the end of the book than before you even turned page one.It’s because of this that we decided to launch the Science Focus Book Club, where we pick out what we think is an excellent, thought provoking science book and ask your questions to its author.You can sign up for the newsletter to find out which book is coming up next, but to give you a taster, in May, our legion of science book fans read Fast Asleep, by Science Focus columnist and BBC presenter Dr Michael Mosley.In this week’s podcast we’ve selected a few of our favourite Q&As where he explains everything you need to know about sleep; from what it is, why we need it and how to get more of it.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 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: Dr Guy Leschziner: What is your brain doing while you sleep? Alice Gregory: How to get a good night's sleep Brian Sharpless: Exploding Head Syndrome Dean Burnett: The neuroscience of happiness John Lennox: Is religion compatible with science? Emma WhispersRed: Why ASMR gives you tingles Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If I asked you to build a robot, the first materials you would probably reach for would be some metal bits and plastic bobs.However, mechanical engineer Ritu Raman designs machines made with biological material, and has created all manner of wonderful machines, including a walking robot made with muscle tissue.In this week’s episode of the Science Focus Podcast, she tells us about how to integrate biology into engineering and what these remarkable devices can do that traditional machines can’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 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: Sonia Contera: How will nanotechnology revolutionise medicine? Sandro Galea: What is the difference between health and medicine? Gordon Wallace: Is an implantable electronic device the future of medicine? Professor Catharina Svanborg: Is the cure for cancer hiding in human breast milk? Nessa Carey: Is gene editing inspiring or terrifying? Dr Lucy Rogers: What makes a robot a robot? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. 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: Sonia Contera: How will nanotechnology revolutionise medicine? Chris Lintott: Can members of the public do real science? Dr Erin Macdonald: Is there science in Star Trek? Jim Al-Khalili: Why should we care about science and scientists? Dr Tilly Blyth: How has art influenced science? John Higgs: Are Generation Z our only hope for the future? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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: Elisa Raffaella Ferrè: What happens to the brain in space? Everything You Wanted To Know About… Physics with Jim Al-Khalili Dr Erin Macdonald: Is there science in Star Trek? Kevin Fong: What happened to Apollo... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, Overcast 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? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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: Elisa Raffaella Ferrè: What happens to the brain in space? Jim Davies: How do you use your imagination? Dr Erin Macdonald: Is there science in Star Trek? Matt Parker: What happens when maths goes horribly, horribly wrong? Kathryn D. Sullivan: What is it really like to walk in space? Sir David Spiegelhalter: There's no such thing as Blue Monday Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 explorationsRead more about Professor Stephen Hawking: Can you solve these deviously difficult Stephen Hawking-inspired questions? Stephen Hawking (1942-2018): the theoretical physicist's life in pictures Twitter Tributes to Professor Stephen Hawking Remembering Professor Stephen Hawking   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. 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: Adam Rutherford: Can science ever be rid of racism? Angela Saini: Is racism creeping into science? Robert Elliott Smith: Are algorithms inherently biased? Caroline Criado Perez: Does data discriminate against women? Marcel Danesi: Why do we want to believe lies? Camilla Pang: How can science guide my life? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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: Sandro Galea: What is the difference between health and medicine? Camilla Pang: How can science guide my life? Jesse Bering: What can psychology tell us about suicide? Caroline Criado Perez: Does data discriminate against women? Adam Rutherford: Can science ever be rid of racism? Phillippa Diedrichs: Is body positivity the answer to body image issues? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices