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PODCAST

The Life Scientific

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires and motivates them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future

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All Episodes

28:16

Julia Slingo

The Life Scientific ·

2014/04/08

Jim Al-Khalili's guest this week is Dame Julia Slingo, the chief scientist at the Met Office. The conversation ranges from her childhood wonder of clouds to climate change's part in this winter's floods.Julia Slingo's fascination with meteorology began as she, as a sixth former, gazed out of her bedroom window and wondered what controlled the shapes of clouds and why the clouds usually came from the west. In the 1970s she was one of the few women scientists at the British Meteorological Office and

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28:11

Veronica van Heyningen

The Life Scientific ·

2014/04/01

Charles Darwin described the eye as an 'organ of extreme perfection and complication'. How this engineering marvel of nature forms out of a few cells in the developing embryo has been the big question for Veronica van Heyningen, emeritus professor at the MRC's Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.Veronica is a world lead in the genetics of the development of the eye. She tells Jim Al Khalili about her part in the discovery of a gene called Pax-6 which turned to

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27:59

Alf Adams

The Life Scientific ·

2014/03/25

Alf Adams FRS, physicist at the University of Surrey, had an idea on a beach in the mid-eighties that made the modern internet, CD and DVD players, and even bar-code readers possible. You probably have half a dozen 'strained-layer quantum well lasers' in your home.

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27:58

Anne Glover

The Life Scientific ·

2014/03/18

Anne Glover is currently one of the most influential scientists in Europe. She advises the President of the European Commission on the research behind issues ranging from nuclear power to genetically modified foods. She talks to Jim al-Khalili about how she makes an impact working across the many countries in Europe with different ideas about science. For example, Germany and France have very different attitudes to nuclear power.Anne Glover is also a Professor at Aberdeen University where she uses

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27:58

Mark Miodownik

The Life Scientific ·

2014/03/11

Mark Miodownik's chronic interest in materials began in rather unhappy circumstances. He was stabbed in the back, with a razor, on his way to school. When he saw the tiny piece of steel that had caused him so much harm, he became obsessed with how it could it be so sharp and so strong. And he's been materials-mad ever since.Working at a nuclear weapons laboratory in the US, he enjoyed huge budgets and the freedom to make the most amazing materials. But he gave that up to work with artists and

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28:07

Vikram Patel

The Life Scientific ·

2014/03/04

Jim Al-Khalili talks to psychiatrist Vikram Patel about the global campaign he is leading to tackle mental health. He reflects on his early career working in Zimbabwe, when he doubted any western diagnoses or treatments for peoples' distress would be of much use. However, his subsequent research made him question this and come to the realisation that some conditions, like depression and psychosis, could be tackled universally. Now based in India, Vikram's research guides the public health approach

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27:55

Sue Black

The Life Scientific ·

2014/02/25

Forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black began her career with a Saturday job working in a butcher's shop. At the time she didn't realise that this would be the start of a lifelong fascination with anatomy.Her job has taken her to some extreme and challenging locations to identify human bodies, such as Kosovo, where she uncovered evidence used in the UN's War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.Back home, Sue has been integral in solving many high-profile criminal cases, including cracking Scotland's

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27:43

Peter Higgs

The Life Scientific ·

2014/02/18

Peter Higgs opens up to Jim Al-Khalili, admitting that he failed to realise the full significance of the Higgs boson and to link it to the much celebrated Standard Model of Physics. An oversight he puts down to a string of missed opportunities, including one night at physics summer camp when, most regrettably, he went to bed early.Working alone in Edinburgh in the sixties, Peter Higgs was considered 'a bit of a crank'. 'No-one wanted to work with me', he says. In 1964, he predicted the possible

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27:54

Wendy Hall

The Life Scientific ·

2013/10/08

Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, has spent a career at the forefront of developments around the web and digital media. Trained as a mathematician, she moved to the fledgling department of computer science in the mid 1980's, a time of great change and great excitement in the field.She talks to Jim Al Khalili about the rate that things have changed, how the web is still not quite what it should be, and about the new discipline she has helped to found

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27:59

Jenny Graves

The Life Scientific ·

2013/10/01

Australian geneticist Jenny Graves discusses her life pursuing sex genes in her country's weird but wonderful fauna, the end of men and singing to her students in lectures.

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27:54

Sophie Scott

The Life Scientific ·

2013/09/24

Jim Al-Khalili talks to neuroscientist and occasional stand up comedian, Professor Sophie Scott about how she is using brain imaging techniques to reveal secrets of the complexity of brain activity when we speak and when we hear others speak. And Sophie Scott explains why laughter is such an important human social tool. But why is it that if we're laughing hard it can completely override our ability to speak? Also why it's not just humans who have a funny bone: even rats laugh.

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27:35

Ian Stewart

The Life Scientific ·

2013/09/17

Ian Stewart, Professor of Maths at Warwick University, has had a dual career as a research mathematician and as a populariser. He wrote his first book for a general audience - on chaos theory - over thirty years. He's also the author of short stories and novels of science fiction, and of the Science of Discworld series.Ian Stewart talks to Jim al-Khalili about his life, including his research into applying mathematics to problems of biology and how he communicates the ideas of number and maths to

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28:05

Mike Benton

The Life Scientific ·

2013/09/10

Life on earth has gone through a series of mass extinctions. Mike Benton talks about his fascination with ancient life on the planet and his work on the Bristol Dinosaur Project.

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28:02

Mark Lythgoe

The Life Scientific ·

2013/09/03

Professor Mark Lythgoe created and runs the largest medical imaging research facility in Europe - the Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging at University College London. That is quite an achievement for someone who spectacularly failed his A levels because he was dancing on the podiums of Manchester clubs or tuning the engine of his motorbike. Now the Centre does everything from testing new treatments for cancer, stroke and heart disease to probing the homing sense of pigeons. Mark Lythgoe's team

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27:58

Joanna Haigh

The Life Scientific ·

2013/08/27

Joanna Haigh, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College, London, studies the influence of the sun on the earth's climate using data collected by satellites. She talks to Jim al-Khalili about how she got started on her career in climate physics: she can trace her interest in it back to her childhood when she built herself a home weather station.Jo Haigh explains why we need to know how the sun affects the climate: it's so scientists can work out what contribution to warming is the result

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27:39

Russell Foster

The Life Scientific ·

2013/08/20

Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University, is obsessed with biological clocks. He talks to Jim al-Khalili about how light controls our wellbeing from jet lag to serious mental health problems. Professor Foster explains how moved from being a poor student at school to the scientist who discovered a new way in which animals detect light.

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28:02

Elizabeth Stokoe

The Life Scientific ·

2013/06/25

Jim Al-Khalili talks to the social psychologist Liz Stokoe about her research as a conversation analyst. Her interest is in the nuances of everyday chit chat but also people going on first dates, the verbal abuse between neighbours at war as well as interviews by the Police with suspected criminals.Liz is professor of social interaction at the University of Loughborough and her unusual approach involves collecting and analysing the fine details of hundreds of real, spontaneous conversations as a

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27:55

David Spiegelhalter

The Life Scientific ·

2013/06/18

Is it more reckless to eat a bacon sandwich everyday or to go skydiving? What's the chance that all children in the same family have exactly the same birthday? Jim Al-Khalili talks to Professor David Spiegelhalter about risk, uncertainty and the real odds behind everyday life. As one of the world's leading statisticians, he is regularly called upon to help answer questions in high profile inquiries - like the one into the Harold Shipman murders, infant heart surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary and

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28:01

Ewan Birney

The Life Scientific ·

2013/06/11

Ewan Birney talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his work on deciphering the human genome and the race to come up with the right number of genes that make us human. Ewan explains why he started a sweepstake to get fellow scientists to estimate the final number and why numbers were wildly wrong. He explains his role in the recent controversy over claims about the demise of 'Junk' DNA. He also talks about artificial DNA and whether it could be the future for information storage? With a colleague, he has

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27:47

Athene Donald

The Life Scientific ·

2013/06/04

When she started her career, physicist Dame Athene Donald took a decision that shocked her colleagues. She wanted to apply the strict rules of physics to the messy, complicated world of biology. Since then, she has taken the field of biological physics out of an unfashionable rut in the 1980s, and helped to turn into one of the most exciting and promising areas in science today. As Professor of Experimental Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University, she studies the microscopic

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