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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

34:41

Weekly: The Best of New Scientist in 2024: From...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/12/27

Episode 282Looking back at some of the best stories New Scientist has published in 2024, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge that will serve you well over the holiday season. Rowan Hooper hosts a panel of New Scientist journalists, as they take it in turn to highlight their favourite moments from the year. Head of features Josh Howgego kicks off by looking at the race to find an amazing and strange form of hydrogen, known as ‘gold hydrogen’ - a game-changer for sustainability which may be

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45:12

Weekly: Most Amazing Science Stories of 2024 | Live...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/12/20

Episode 281In this special episode recorded live at the Science Museum in London, we celebrate some of the best, most awe-inspiring science stories of 2024. Round one kicks off with the panelist’s stories of the year, including the discovery that thousand-year-old preserved brains are much easier to find than we realised, that metallic nodules found on the sea floor could be acting as “geobatteries”, creating oxygen in the deep sea, plus a surprising finding involving Dyson Spheres that may hint

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25:30

Weekly: Does Google’s new quantum computer prove the...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/12/13

Episode 280Google claims it has pulled ahead in the race for quantum supremacy. Its new Willow chip has completed a task in 5 minutes that a classical computer would take 10 septillion years to complete. But the biggest breakthrough is how it excels in error correction. Find out what this means and why some scientists believe this new quantum computer proves the existence of the multiverse. Data from one of the world’s largest collections of brain scans is shedding new light on how to keep our

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32:22

Weekly: Antarctica special, brain implant made from...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/12/06

Episode 279Antarctic sea ice is melting at an unprecedented rate. A collapse like the one we’re seeing was given just a 1 in 700 billion year chance of happening, based on climate models - we basically thought it was impossible. Melting ice in Antarctica will have global scale, knock-on ecological and climate consequences. To address the crisis, five hundred researchers met in Australia for an emergency summit for the future of the Antarctic. Sarah Thompson, one of the scientists at the conference,

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23:04

Weekly: Is bird flu spreading between people? Plus...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/11/29

Episode 278Concerns about bird flu are rising as two cases in North America suggest the virus is adapting to humans. Evidence of human-to-human transmission is not yet conclusive but public health experts are worried. This year outbreaks have been found in both poultry and dairy cows in the US. Although it only causes mild symptoms in people at the moment, is there a chance it could evolve to become deadly? A last-minute deal has been struck at the UN climate summit COP29 – and people are not

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36:02

Weekly: Why chimps are still in the Stone Age and...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/11/22

Episode 277Chimps are an intelligent species, capable of using tools and developing culture - so why have humans surpassed them to such a huge extent? How is it that we are busy exploring space while chimps remain stuck in the Stone Age? It’s long been thought it’s because their culture doesn’t evolve cumulatively, but that assumption has just been challenged. Hear from Cassandra Gunasekaram, the lead author of a paper that shows chimp culture develops in a more complex way than we realised. We

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30:35

Weekly: COP29: Are UN climate summits failing us and...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/11/15

Episode 276 Are the COP climate summits doing enough to help us avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change, or are they not fit for purpose, and designed to fail? COP29 is underway in petrostate Azerbaijan, headed by a CEO who was secretly filmed making oil and gas deals. Despite this, the team finds reason for optimism. They also hear from climate philosopher and activist Rupert Read, who runs the Climate Majority Project. He argues the COP process was designed to fail, that 1.5 degrees

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34:02

Weekly: The origins of writing revealed; world’s...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/11/08

Episode 275The origins of the world’s oldest known writing system are being uncovered. Cuneiform was invented around 3200 BC in ancient Mesopotamia, but before it came a much simpler form of writing called proto-cuneiform. Researchers are now shedding light on how writing began along with the cultural factors that spurred on its invention. Just as the rather disappointing COP16 biodiversity conference comes to a close, another COP is nearly upon us. The famous climate conference is in its 29th year

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32:08

Weekly: Microbiome special: how to boost your vital...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/11/01

Episode 274World leaders are in Colombia for the COP16 biodiversity summit. As delegates hash out a path forward, have we actually made any progress to protect global biodiversity since they last gathered? What would a Trump presidency mean for the climate? With the US election taking place on 5th November, two climate experts weigh in with their concerns. Leah Stokes works on climate policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Naomi Oreskes is a professor of earth and planetary

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22:17

Weekly: The gruesome story of the Viking skeleton...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/25

Episode 273 The mystery of “Well Man”, an ancient cold case, has just been solved. A Norse saga tells that in 1197, in the midst of a Viking raid, warriors dumped a body in a well inside a castle. Over 800 years later, archeologists recovered a body from that very well – but didn’t have the technology to show it was the man from the saga… until now. Some welcome good news about the climate. Energy imbalance, a key measure of global warming, has been rising fast, sparking fears that warming is

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22:11

Weekly: SpaceX makes history with Starship rocket;...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/18

Episode 272 SpaceX has made history with its Starship rocket, the largest rocket ever built and one that’s hoped to eventually take us to Mars. In its fifth test, SpaceX successfully returned the rocket’s booster back to the launchpad and caught hold of it – an engineering feat of great finesse. But how close are we to putting crew on the rocket–- and when will it take humanity to the Red Planet? Leah-Nani Alconcel, spacecraft engineer at the University of Birmingham, joins the conversation. We

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21:01

Weekly: Climate overshoot - when we go past 1.5...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/11

Episode 271If we overshoot 1.5 degrees of global warming, there is no going back. The hope has long been that if - and when - we blow past our climate goals, we can later reverse the damage. But there’s no guarantee we can bring temperatures back down, according to a paper published in Nature this week. The report suggests it would take decades to get back to normal - and some of the more devastating consequences will be irreversible. Hear from a variety of experts on the problem of climate

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15:23

The Last of Its Kind - Gísli Pálsson | Royal Society...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/04

The great auk was a flightless bird which was last spotted in Iceland in 1844. It is the subject of the book The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction. Written by Gísli Pálsson, an Icelandic anthropologist and academic, the book offers vital insights into the extinction of the species through accounts from the Icelanders who hunted them.Pálsson is on the shortlist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. In the lead up to the winner’s announcement,

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23:32

Weekly: Hope for the world’s coral; the first drone...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/04

Episode 270There may be hope for the survival of coral reefs, a vital part of the global underwater ecosystem that is under massive threat from climate change. At 1.5 C degrees of warming we’re at risk of losing 70-90 per cent of coral - and more than 99 per cent is estimated to die off at 2 degrees. But new research suggests corals may be more adaptable and resilient than we thought. Hear from two experts on the matter, Chris Jury of the University of Hawaii and Terry Hughes, director of the Centre

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20:31

Everything Is Predictable - Tom Chivers | Royal...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/03

Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World is a book about an 18th century mathematical rule for working out probability, which shapes many aspects of our modern world.Written by science journalist Tom Chivers, the book has made it onto the shortlist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. In the lead up to the winner’s announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets all six of the shortlisted authors.In this conversation, Tom explores the life

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14:21

Eve - Cat Bohannon | Royal Society Trivedi Science...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/02

Women have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to have more sensitive noses, sharper hearing at high frequencies, and longer life expectancy than men. But why have women's bodies been so under-researched? It’s one of the many questions Cat Bohannon raises in her book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution.Shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, Eve explores how women’s biology has shaped human history and culture. In the lead up to the

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17:12

Why We Die by Venki Ramakrishnan - Royal Society...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/10/01

Why We Die is a book about ageing and death, written by Nobel Prize-winning biologist and former president of the Royal Society, Venki Ramakrishnan.Venki is on the shortlist for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. In the lead up to the winner’s announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets all six of the shortlisted authors.In this conversation, Venki explores humankind’s unique ability to understand and contemplate our own mortality, why some animals live such short lives

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14:10

A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith - Royal...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/09/30

As the heated race to settle humans on Mars continues, is it really a good idea? And what are the biggest challenges to making interplanetary life a reality?These are the questions Kelly and Zach Weinersmith explore in their book, A City on Mars. The pair have been shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, and ahead of the winner's announcement, New Scientist books editor Alison Flood meets with all six shortlisted authors.In this conversation, Kelly and Zach dive

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13:03

Your Face Belongs To Us - Kashmir Hill | Royal...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/09/29

How often do you upload a picture of yourself online? And what happens to that photo long after it's been posted? The truth may shock you, as we find out in this episode.In Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy, New York Times journalist Kashmir Hill investigates the world of facial recognition technology and its implications for privacy. The book traces the story of Clearview AI, a mysterious startup selling cutting-edge facial recognition software to

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25:05

Weekly: The case for Arctic geoengineering; world’s...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/09/27

Episode 269Could we re-freeze the Arctic… and should we? The Arctic is losing ice at an alarming rate and it’s too late to save it by cutting emissions alone. Geoengineering may be our only hope. A company called Real Ice has successfully tested a plan to artificially keep the region cold - but what are the consequences and will it work on the scale we need?Octopuses and fish have been found hunting together in packs in an unexpected display of cooperation. Not only do the fish scout out potential

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349 results

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