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Physical Attraction

Physical Attraction is the show that explores topics in science, technology, and the future - from a physicist"s perspective. From the birth of stars to the end of the world, from interviews with experts to meticulously-researched deep dives, we"ll explore the topics that shape our world.

science physics

All Episodes

54:17

Stuart Armstrong - AI and the Future of Humanity

Physical Attraction ·

2017/12/26

We have a guest on the show today! His name is Stuart Armstrong, and he works at the Future of Humanity Institute that we’ve mentioned several times over the course of the TEOTWAWKI specials who are looking at big-picture existential risks. Stuart Armstrong’s research at the Future of Humanity Institute centers on the safety and possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI), how to define the potential goals of AI and map humanity’s partially defined values into it, and the long term potential for

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58:25

Britt Wray on CRISPR, De-Extinction and Necrofauna

Physical Attraction ·

2017/12/15

Today on the show, our guest is Britt Wray. Britt Wray is a broadcaster, author and public speaker researching emerging science and tech. She tells stories about what she finds via podcasting, interactive documentary, print and tv. Recently, she has hosted the BBC Tomorrow's World podcast with Ellie Cosgrave - I'm sure lots of us remember the old TV show which is now being revived in podcast form - and her first book, Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction - has just

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01:19:40

Zach Weinersmith on Soonish: Ten Emerging...

Physical Attraction ·

2017/12/08

We have a special guest on the show today: I’m excited, are you excited? It’s Zach Weinersmith. Zach is the creator of the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, which I’m sure many of you love and enjoy. He created the Bad Ad-Hoc Hypotheses festival where people give ludicrous solutions to genuine scientific problems. And with his amazing wife Kelly Weinersmith, hosted a podcast, the Weekly Weinersmith, and wrote a book – Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies that Will Improve and/or Ruin

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46:05

TEOTWAWKI: The Singularity, Part II

Physical Attraction ·

2017/12/05

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Martin Rees... all have warned about the risk from Artificial Intelligence. Centres like the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, and the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, rate the risk from artificial intelligence as way up there on the scale of potential human apocalypses. But it won't look like killer terminator-robots. We are standing on the precipice of a future that's almost impossible to comprehend. Will it be possible to survive? In this episode,

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38:37

Phil Torres, XRiskology Interview, Part 2:...

Physical Attraction ·

2017/12/01

This is the much-anticipated second part of the Phil Torres Tapes! We have a guest on the show today – Phil Torres. Phil Torres is an author, Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, former contributor at the Future of Life Institute, and founding Director of the X-Risks Institute. He has published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Skeptic, Free Inquiry, The Humanist, Journal of Future Studies, Bioethics, Journal of Evolution and Technology, Foresight, Erkenntnis,

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40:48

TEOTWAWKI 3 - The Singularity, Part I

Physical Attraction ·

2017/11/24

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Martin Rees... all have warned about the risk from Artificial Intelligence. Centres like the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, and the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, rate the risk from artificial intelligence as way up there on the scale of potential human apocalypses. But it won't look like killer terminator-robots. We are standing on the precipice of a future that's almost impossible to comprehend. Will it be possible to survive? In this episode,

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50:46

Rafael Alves-Batista: Resilience of Life,...

Physical Attraction ·

2017/11/17

Joining me today is Dr Rafael Alves-Batista. Rafael is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Oxford. He received his Bachelor’s Degree and his Masters’ at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, moved to Hamburg, Germany for his PhD which he received in 2015, and then onto Oxford for his postdoctoral position. And, last year, he supervised my Masters’ project, looking into the origin of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: so I can attest to his genius first-hand! In this second

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35:43

TEOTWAWKI 4, Supervirus II: The Human Factor

Physical Attraction ·

2017/11/10

Earlier this year, a couple of scientists in a laboratory did something incredible. Using nothing but the genetic code and a well-equipped lab, they raised the dead. Specifically, the extinct horsepox virus was brought back to life. The scientists said that they didn't do the experiment out of any malice for horses, but just to demonstrate that - with a few good biotech experts, a decent lab, and $100,000 - anyone would soon be able to bring viruses back from the dead. So what about when that

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I've written some new articles...

Physical Attraction ·

2017/11/04

Hey all, I've been writing some articles for the good folks over at Singularity Hub, who'll help you keep on top of a lot of breaking technology news. Working with them has been great so far. You can see all my work here but there are also some highlights: What It Would Take to Suck CO2 Back Out of the Atmosphere I briefly assess some of the various potentials for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) geoengineering. Lots of people ask me, when I talk about climate change, whether we can't just 'invent

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04:39

Announcing Patreon and how to Support the Show

Physical Attraction ·

2017/11/03

www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction, that's www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . If you go there, and subscribe selecting the $3/episode option, the RSS feed and access to all of the online bonus episodes will be yours. I want to make the subscription $3/bonus episode, so that you're only paying for the content I actually produce and give you rather than some neverending monthly subscription. But I will trail the bonus episodes in advance, so that you know what you're getting. The first one is the

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24:05

TEOTWAWKI Bonus: Alien Attack (Free Episode)

Physical Attraction ·

2017/11/03

Things have been very serious and very depressing on our TEOTWAWKI specials; so I thought it was about time to do a little bit of light-hearted debunking, rather than ranting about the genuine dangers of apocalypse that might await us in the future. I'll discuss why the Roswell story doesn't add up - even a little bit - what an actual alien invasion could you like; and why it's just so damn unlikely that any of these alien abduction stories are especially true. We'll even talk about reports of

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32:59

TEOTWAWKI 4, Supervirus Part I: Nature

Physical Attraction ·

2017/10/27

Human beings have been facing apocalyptic circumstances for thousands of years. Our competitors, our nemesis have been pathogens like malaria, Yersinia Pestis, smallpox... every few generations, a cataclysmic plague would tear through human populations and leave entire towns uninhabited. In the modern era, with modern medicines, we may feel that - at least in the industrialized West - this horror is behind our species now. But with evolving technology and behaviours come new risks; and we have seen

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39:38

Rafael Alves-Batista: Cosmic Rays and the Multiverse

Physical Attraction ·

2017/10/21

Joining me today is Dr Rafael Alves-Batista. Rafael is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Oxford. He received his Bachelor’s Degree and his Masters’ at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, moved to Hamburg, Germany for his PhD which he received in 2015, and then onto Oxford for his postdoctoral position. And, last year, he supervised my Masters’ project, looking into the origin of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays: so I can attest to his genius first-hand! In this first part

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16:10

News: Neutron Star Merger, Yay Science!

Physical Attraction ·

2017/10/16

LIGO hold a big press conference and announce the merger of Neutron Stars detected via gravitational waves and optical instruments for the first time. We now know about types of gamma ray burst, and where gold and platinum come from. Since we did an episode about the gravitational wave detections and the Nobel Prize less than a week ago, I thought it would be fun for me to breathlessly describe it based on what reading I've been able to do and give a few early thoughts. YAY SCIENCE!

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29:31

TEOTWAWKI 5: Peak Oil

Physical Attraction ·

2017/10/14

This episode of the TEOTWAWKI specials, we're focusing on every crazed doom-prepper's favourite scenario for the end of the world - Peak Oil. Our society runs on oil and petroleum products (sadly, still). These fossil fuels are the fossilised remains of plants and animals that died millions of years ago, and they take tens of thousands of years to form. So it seems to be a perfectly reasonable assumption to make: one day, we are going to run out of fossil fuels, and we will need renewable forms of

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32:50

2017 Nobel Prize Special: Gravitational Waves

Physical Attraction ·

2017/10/04

As you may already know, yesterday, the Nobel Prize in Physics, 2017 was announced: it went to Kip Thorne, Barry Barish, and Rainer Weiss for their contributions towards the LIGO collaboration that detected gravitational waves. In this special episode, I'll talk a little bit about the history of the Nobel prizes, explain what they were looking for at LIGO, how they found it, and what it means. So if you ever wondered what a gravitational wave was but were too afraid to ask, hopefully, it'll help

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28:16

TEOTWAWKI 6: Malthus' Revenge

Physical Attraction ·

2017/09/30

The human population has been growing exponentially for a long time. It’s been continuously growing since the Black Death in the 1300s – and although wars, famines, and plagues cause occasional blips in the growth since, it’s been pretty close to exponential since the Industrial Revolution kicked off. Now Malthus was not the only one to notice this, before I get letters, but he is indisputably the one who has his name most closely associated with the concept. Malthus, among others, saw this in the

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47:05

XRiskology: Existential Risks with Phil Torres, Part I

Physical Attraction ·

2017/09/24

We have a guest on the show today – Phil Torres. Phil Torres is an author, Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, former contributor at the Future of Life Institute, and founding Director of the X-Risks Institute. He has published in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Skeptic, Free Inquiry, The Humanist, Journal of Future Studies, Bioethics, Journal of Evolution and Technology, Foresight, Erkenntnis, and Metaphilosophy, as well as popular media

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22:32

TEOTWAWKI 7 - Supervolcanoes

Physical Attraction ·

2017/09/15

75,000 years ago, the human race was on the brink of extinction. The cause was the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which had plunged the earth into a volcanic winter and killed all but a few thousand remaining humans. This moment was the closest we have come to extinction since our species began. Even smaller volcanic eruptions have lead to such cheerful-sounding phenomena as "The Year Without a Summer". Now, the question has to be asked: could this happen again? And how likely is it to occur

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20:45

Bonus Episode: Solar Panels + Splitting Sunbeams

Physical Attraction ·

2017/09/10

Occasionally, in the world, we observe empirical laws – the laws of experiment - that seem to be spookily accurate. There’s no theoretical reason why they should be obeyed, but they just happen to describe the world remarkably well. Perhaps the best example of this, that has changed and will change the world the most, is Moore’s Law. But there's another example - one that will render every Green warrior happy to think about. The price of solar energy is dropping off a cliff. Tweet us @physicspod

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