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PODCAST

The world, the universe and us

From the evolution of intelligent life, to the mysteries of consciousness; from the threat of the climate crisis to the search for dark matter, The world, the universe and us is your essential weekly dose of science and wonder in an uncertain world. Hosted by journalists Dr Rowan Hooper and Dr Penny Sarchet and joined each week by expert scientists in the field, the show draws on New Scientist’s unparalleled depth of reporting to put the stories that matter into context. Feed your curiosity with the

science

All Episodes

28:29

Weekly: Why we should drill a massive hole in the...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/07

#253The moon may hold the answer to a decades-long physics conundrum – all we need to do is drill several kilometres into its surface. For years, physicists have been searching for protons that fall apart or decay into other particles, but they’ve always come up empty handed. So why do they think they might find them on the moon?A new update on the state of the world’s climate has not brought cheery news. A report looking at 2023 has revealed the world is warming at a record rate – with estimates

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41:38

CultureLab: On the hunt for alien life with Lisa...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/03

If (or maybe when) we find alien life in the universe, will it look like us? As telescopes become bigger, our ability to peer into the cosmos is only getting better. So the question may not be “will we find something?” but rather “what exactly should we be looking for?”Lisa Kaltenegger is an astrophysicist and founding director of Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute. She even works out of Sagan’s old office and shares the same optimism and enthusiasm he brought to the search for

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33:09

Weekly: Google’s AI search problem; time is a quantum...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/31

#252It is not wise to stick cheese on your pizza with glue, even if Google tells you to do it. This is just one recommendation in a string of blunders made by Google’s new AI search engine. It uses a large language model to summarise your searches, but clearly it’s not always working as planned. Can (and will) the company fix it?No matter what language you speak, when you hear the word “bouba”, you probably imagine a round shape. And “kiki’ will likely make you think of a sharp shape. This example

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24:31

Dead Planets Society: Removing Mars’s Iron With a Magnet

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/28

When you bring a giant magnet to Mars, apocalyptic eruptions are just the beginning. In an attempt to suck out all of the iron from the red planet, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte end up shattering it like an Easter egg.Their new cosmic plaything, a U-shaped Wile E. Coyote-esque magnet, is used in various different ways for the purposes of complete annihilation.With the help of science journalist and volcanologist Robin George Andrews, the team squeeze the core out like it’s toothpaste, turn the magnet

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27:07

Weekly: Record hurricane season approaches;...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/24

#251Hurricane season in the Atlantic ocean is set to be extremely active, according to forecasts. Expect to see as many as 25 named tropical storms, with many likely to become hurricanes. Find out how high sea surface temperatures and shifting El Niño conditions are creating the perfect conditions for a potentially record breaking season.The sun’s magnetic field may function quite differently to Earth’s. We’ve long assumed it originates from deep within but it seems the sun has a different way of

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29:01

CultureLab: Emily H. Wilson celebrates the expansive...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/20

From Dune to The Three Body Problem, is science fiction having a moment? Attention to the genre, as well as TV and films based on it, seems to have exploded in the past few years. With sci-fi often getting a bad rap, it’s time to ditch the snobbery and celebrate its complexity and diversity. And who better to do this with than New Scientist’s science fiction columnist – and our former editor – Emily H. Wilson?Wilson is a journalist and author. In 2023 she published Inanna, the first of The

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28:20

Weekly: Hints of alien life in our galaxy; freezing...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/17

#250There are signs that aliens might be harnessing the power of stars in our galaxy to fuel their civilisations. Dyson spheres are structures that surround entire stars to absorb their energy. Although these are just hypothetical, researchers have detected hints of their existence. But aliens aren’t the only possible explanation.Being able to freeze human brain tissue could be a game-changer for medical research. While freezing brains is easy, thawing them out without damaging the tissue is much

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34:01

Dead Planets Society: Giving the Milky Way More Arms

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/14

Galaxies come in only a few shapes, which are all very round looking. You’ve got spirals and you’ve got blobs. Not content with this boring assortment, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte want to shake things up a bit.First up they want to give our own spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, more arms. One, two… eight? As many as possible. But they don’t stop at “octogalaxy”. They also ponder on what it would take to defy the laws of physics and create a giraffe-shaped galaxy.Aided by Vivian U, an astronomer at UC

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25:17

Weekly: Do sperm whales have an alphabet?; Why dark...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/10

#249Do whales have their own alphabet? We’ve long thought the clicking sounds that sperm whales make is their way of chatting to each other, but those clicks may be even more sophisticated than we realised. After analysing whale recordings, researchers suggest the different click patterns are complex enough to form an alphabet – the closest thing to human communication we’ve yet seen in animals.We know very little about dark energy – and it turns out we may know even less than we thought. This

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32:48

CultureLab: Elizabeth Kolbert on what we’re missing...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/07

How do we understand the stakes of climate change, and communicate them? As we’re facing the consequences of climate change and our historical inaction as a species, how do we come to terms with the reality and uncertainty of our situation?In H is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z, Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert breaks things down for us, alphabetically. She dissects the narratives around climate change, from sobering facts about our warming planet, to innovations

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29:48

Weekly: Is climate change accelerating?; Anger vs...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/05/03

#248Last year marked the hottest on record, shattering previous temperature benchmarks across both land and sea. The rapid escalation – seemingly at odds with the expected cooling after coming out of a La Niña cycle – has prompted scientists to question if climate change is accelerating beyond our models' predictionsJust eight minutes of anger can significantly impair blood vessel function and potentially increase the risk of a heart attack. A study has looked into the physiological mechanisms of

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23:33

Dead Planets Society: A Neverending Solar Eclipse

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/29

Did you miss out on the recent total eclipse? Don’t fear, we’ve got the solution. We bring you the constant solar eclipse.Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane have decided not to destroy the Sun this time. Instead, they just want to block it from view at all times. But it’s all in the name of good – so everyone gets to experience the same “primal fear” Leah did when she first saw an eclipse.What starts with a modest-sized sunshade in low-Earth orbit creating 5 second eclipses, quickly turns into moving

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33:10

Weekly: What India elections mean for climate change;...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/26

#247What does India’s election season mean for climate change? Last year India overtook the European Union as the third largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases. And as voters head to the polls in the middle of an intense heat wave, it’s critical whichever party wins continues to push towards the goal of net zero emissions by 2070. But as the country continues to invest in expanding coal power, is that target achievable?Animals of all kinds communicate in so many different ways, but what are they

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28:27

CultureLab: Meredith Broussard on trusting artificial...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/22

How much faith should we be putting in artificial intelligence? As large language models and generative AI have become increasingly powerful in recent years, their makers are pushing the narrative that AI is a solution to many of the world’s problems.But Meredith Broussard says we’re not there yet, if we even get there at all. Broussard is the author of More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech. She coined the term “technochauvinism,” which speaks to a pro-technology

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33:01

Weekly: Carbon storage targets ‘wildly unrealistic’;...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/19

#246Our best climate models for helping limit global warming to 1.5oC may have wildly overestimated our chances. To reach this goal, models are relying heavily on geological carbon storage, a technology that removes carbon from the atmosphere and places it underground. But it may not be nearly as effective as models have suggested, making the task of decarbonising much more difficult. Do we need to rethink our approach?Intel has announced it has constructed the world’s biggest computer modelled on

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24:59

Dead Planets Society: How to Destroy A Black Hole

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/15

How do you destroy a black hole? Turns out they're pretty tough cookies.Kicking off a brand new series of Dead Planets Society, Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane take on the universe's most powerful adversaries. With the help of their cosmic toolbelt and black hole astronomer Allison Kirkpatrick at the University of Kansas, they test all the destructive ideas they can think of.Whether it’s throwing masses of TNT at it, blasting it with a t-shirt gun full of white holes, loading it up with a multiverse

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29:29

Weekly: The multiverse just got bigger; saving the...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/12

#245The multiverse may be bigger than we thought. The idea that we exist in just one of a massive collection of alternate universes has really captured the public imagination in the last decade. But now Hugh Everett’s 60-year-old “many worlds interpretation”, based on quantum mechanics, has been upgraded.The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction but we may be able to save it. Scientists plan to use frozen genes from 12 now dead rhinos to rebuild the entire subspecies. But how do you

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39:17

CultureLab: Jen Gunter on the taboo science of...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/08

Half of the human population undergoes the menstrual cycle for a significant proportion of their lifetimes, yet periods remain a taboo topic in public and private life. And that makes it harder both to prioritise necessary scientific research into conditions like endometriosis and for people to understand the basics of how their bodies work.Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation is gynaecologist Jen Gunter’s latest book. In this practical guide, she dispels social, historical

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30:58

Weekly: Miniature livers made from lymph nodes in...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/05

#244Researchers have successfully turned lymph nodes into miniature livers that help filter the blood of mice, pigs and other animals – and now, trials are beginning in humans. If successful, the groundbreaking medical procedure could prove life-saving for thousands of people waiting for liver transplants around the world. So far, no complications have been seen from the procedure, but it will be several months before we know if the treatment is working as hoped in the first of 12 trial participants

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18:48

Escape Pod: #8 Escape from predators and escape from...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/04/01

This is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in March 2021.From beetle explosions to the deep dark depths of the ocean, this episode is all about escape.The team discusses the amazing (and sometimes disgusting) way bombardier beetles escape predators.They explain what it takes for an object to reach escape velocity, celebrating the mathematical mind of Katherine Johnson while they’re at it.And they explore the daunting realms of free-diving, and the lengths people will go to for a bit of

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