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PODCAST

Oxford Sparks Big Questions

"Will my bacon sandwich kill me?", "Is vaping better than smoking?", "How do you become an astronaut?" - just some of the Big Questions we ask some of the brightest minds behind Oxford science. Join us in each podcast as we explore a different area of science.

science natural sciences

All Episodes

11:33

'Killers' part 2 - Keeping water flowing with...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2016/01/29

Water pumps are a lifeline for many communities in developing countries. But how can you monitor them all to know whether they're in working order? And can you collect data based on pump usage to provide useful insights into community health? Water is essential for life. So when your only source of safe water is from a water pump you grow to depend on it. If it broke then you'd have to walk further, or go thirsty. With so many water pumps so vital to so many vulnerable communities in developing

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12:57

'Killers' part 1 - Mosquito genomes and malaria control

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/12/15

Can studying Mosquito population genomes help to stop the spread of Malaria? Malaria is a huge problem, affecting millions of people worldwide. Mosquitoes spread the disease by passing on a parasite as it feeds on blood. Dr Alistair Miles talks us through one part of the puzzle of tackling the disease through understanding mosquito populations. Can we tell from sequencing the genomes of mosquitoes whether bed nets are effective? Do their genes reveal how we might monitor the spread of insecticide

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08:14

'Clues' part 3 - Picking apart the genetics of speech...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/12/01

How do you start to pick apart speech at the genetic level? Dr Dianne Newbury explains what Specific Language Impairment is and how her research is unravelling a pretty complicated picture. Specific Language Impairment describes those who have difficulty learning, using and understanding language even though there aren't any developmental, physical or other issues. In this episode Dr Dianne Newbury describes how her research picks apart genetic information to look for the genetic variation that

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10:46

'Clues' part 2 - Watching penguins

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/11/16

How do you understand how large populations of penguins on Antarctica change? And how can you use this information to protect penguins? Dr Tom Hart runs the 'Penguin Watch' project that gives people from all over the world the chance to help researchers keep tabs on what penguins on Antarctica are up to. This gives researchers a good understanding of how well penguins are doing. They can also use other techniques to fully understand what sorts of things affect penguin populations. In this podcast

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12:18

'Clues' part 1 - Predicting volcanic eruptions

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/10/22

From people on the the ground to satellites in the air - how do we monitor and understand volcanos in an attempt to understand when they might erupt? Professor David Pyle discusses how combinations of different types of information is pieced together to help volcanologists better understand how different volcanoes behave. Each volcano has it's own 'fingerprint' so a more detailed knowledge of their behaviour can be used to inform policies for communities that live near volcanoes, helping to avoid

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13:42

'Artificial Intelligence' part 3 - Understanding how...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/06/12

Professor Kim Plunkett explains how neuroscientists use artificial intelligence as a tool to model processes in the brain – in particular to understand how infants acquire language.

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12:09

'Artificial Intelligence' part 2 - How to create...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/05/19

Professor Nando de Freitas explains that understanding how our brains work has helped us create machines that learn, and how these learning machines can be put to completing different tasks. We talk to Nando de Freitas who works on creating machines that can learn. He tells us how getting to grips with how our own minds work has helped to inspire us to come up with what sounds like the surprisingly simple recipe for a learning machine. We also find out what sorts of tasks these learning machines are

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11:17

'Artificial Intelligence' part 1 - Using artificial...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/04/15

Professor Stephen Roberts explains how machines, whose job it is simply to learn, can help researchers spot scientific needles in data haystacks, which will help us solve some grand challenges.

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10:41

'Explosions' part 3 - Health and Big Data

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/03/30

Professor Gil McVean explains what Big Data is and how it can be used to better understand and treat complex conditions, such as heart disease and dementia.

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11:27

'Explosions' part 2 - The origin of animal diversity

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/03/16

Dr Allison Daley describes what fossils can tell us about the Cambrian Explosion; a period of time 540 million years ago, where there was a vast increase in the different types of animals that existed.

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10:00

"Explosions" Part 1 - Oppenheimer: father of the...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/03/04

Professor David Wark, who was scientific adviser for the play ‘Oppenheimer’, explores the science and broad implications of one of the most explosive ideas in Human history: the atomic bomb.

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08:43

"Anomalies" Part 3 - Placebos and pain

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/02/10

Professor Irene Tracey explains the placebo effect and how it is a normal part of our pain system. Although it is understood why we have pain – to tell us we are hurt and as a reminder not to do something again – it is not totally understood how the pain system works and how it affects individuals.

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08:09

"Anomalies" Part 2 - Turing Patterns

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/01/26

Dr Christian Yates describes a phenomenon first noticed by the World War II code-breaker, Alan Turing. Turing noticed that natural patterns such as spots, stripes and spirals arose from chemical diffusion – a situation that normally leads to uniformity and stability.

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08:30

"Anomalies" Part 1 - Tinnitus

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/01/21

Researcher Joshua Gold explains a condition called tinnitus, most often described as a persistent and annoying sound in one or both ears. Tinnitus is surprisingly common, with about 10% of population suffering from it at some point in their lives, and yet it is poorly understood and there is currently no cure.

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08:05

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/01/05

Dr Andrew Pontzen explains how chains of computers can be set up to simulate billions of years of development of the universe, but in a time period of weeks. By inputting what is known about the early universe and applying the laws of physics, it is possible to explore how the universe has evolved.

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10:07

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2015/01/05

Edward Imrie and Dr Stephen Johnston Edward Imrie and Dr Stephen Johnston talk about a surprising discovery – a collection of boxes, originally containing chocolates and soap, now full of tiny chemical vials thought to date back to the 1930s. The chemicals belonged to Sir Robert Robinson, a respected Oxford chemist and Nobel laureate. By investigating the chemicals, it was hoped that clues could be found about Robinson’s research.

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10:38

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2014/12/15

Dr David Wallace discusses the concept of the multiverse – a physical reality that contains lots of universes, each of which inhabited by different versions of ourselves. These parallel worlds sound like science fiction, but the theory is sound, even if we’re not able to actually interact with them.

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09:33

"There's no place like home" Part 3 - Exoplanets

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2014/12/15

Ruth Angus talks about the search for life outside our solar system. In our own solar system, we have rocky planets towards the centre and gas giant planets further out. Earth sits in the ‘habitable zone’, where it’s the right distance away from the star to have liquid water on its surface - it’s not too hot and not too cold. But as we find more solar systems and planets, we are starting to discover that our own home is far from normal.

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09:37

"There's no place like home" Part 2 - The People of...

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2014/12/15

Bruce Winney describes the influx of humans to the British Isles, including the Romans, Anglo Saxons and Vikings. By comparing and contrasting the genetic make-up of patients, researchers can explore how genetics can influence disease. The data can also reveal how much of an effect early settlers had on the population of today.

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10:19

"There’s No Place Like Home" Part 1 - Wytham Woods

Oxford Sparks Big Questions ·

2014/11/20

Professor Ben Sheldon describes one of the World’s longest-running ecological studies, into birds in their natural environments. Starting in 1947, the study of the Great Tit explores basic data including numbers, life spans and productivity from over 1,200 nest boxes.

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206 results

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