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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

24:14

Dead Planets Society: Putting Black Holes Inside Stuff

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/07/08

Primordial black holes are tiny versions of the big beasts you typically think of. They’re so small, they could easily fit inside stuff, like a planet, or a star… or a person. So, needless to say, this has piqued the curiosity of our Dead Planeteers.Leah and Chelsea want to know, can you put primordial black holes inside things and what happens if you do?Black hole astronomer Allison Kirkpatrick at the University of Kansas is back to help them figure this one out. And it turns out, despite being

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33:43

Weekly: World’s Oldest Ritual; Quantum Wi-Fi; Report...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/07/05

#257Two extraordinary findings have been unearthed about our ancient ancestors. The first is a discovery from a cave in Australia – evidence of what could be the world’s oldest ritual, practised continuously for 12,000 years. And the second is the discovery that the world’s oldest evidence of storytelling may be even older than we thought.We may be able to mine for nickel using flowers. The method is much more sustainable than traditional mining and is actually being used by some companies. Is it

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37:35

CultureLab: Sonifying Mars, symphonically, with David...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/07/01

Despite humans having never set foot on Mars, scientists have been working for decades to paint a picture of life on the red planet. With the help of photos and videos from robotic rovers, scientists now know more than ever about its rocky terrain, early history and current climate.Now, experts are painting a fuller picture of the dusty planet by using audio recordings captured by these rovers. Composer David Ibbett has used that data in epic fashion: to create an immersive concert that harnesses

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23:17

Weekly: Even more powerful gene editing than CRISPR;...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/28

#256A new gene editing technique may be more powerful than CRISPR. Bridge editing is still in its infancy, but could be revolutionary for its ability to more specifically target gene substitutions. This method of altering DNA may let us create single treatments for gene mutations across large groups of people – something even CRISPR can’t do.China’s Chang’e 6 spacecraft has returned to Earth with samples from the far side of the moon – the first ever. Hear what the samples may tell us about this

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23:36

Dead Planets Society: Bringing Back Geocentrism

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/24

The ancient Greeks once proposed the Earth was at the centre of our solar system and everything orbited us. We like that idea. Let’s make it happen.But as Dead Planeteers Leah and Chelsea find out, if you bring back geocentrism, Earth would only be king of the universe for a very, very short time – before all hell breaks loose.It starts with enlarging the earth and potentially turning it into a black hole, we then have all the planets hurtling towards us through space, then it ends with a visit from

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24:11

Weekly: Why some people never get covid-19; Chimps...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/21

#255Why do some people seem to be naturally immune to covid-19? We may finally have the answer and it’s to do with differences in the way immune cells function. Will the finding help us predict who’s immune and who isn’t – and more?Artificial intelligence is being used to tackle the problem of clearing mines from enormous swaths of Ukraine. Russia has scattered vast amounts of ordinance across Ukraine, tearing up agricultural land and leaving behind chemical contamination. The clean-up operation

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38:39

CultureLab: The catastrophic health consequences of...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/17

We like to think of science and medicine as unbiased, unaffected by social constructs. But we see evidence to the contrary everyday, from false yet persistent claims that black people’s bones are denser to the reality that the covid-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted people of colour.In her debut book Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill, science journalist Layal Liverpool explores the health consequences of racism. She showcases how fatal stereotypes can leave people of colour in need of

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36:52

Weekly: Elephants have names for each other;...

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/14

We know elephants are smart, but it seems we’ve only scratched the surface in understanding their intelligence. It turns out African elephants seem to have unique names for each other – maybe even nicknames. If it’s true, humans would no longer be alone in this practice. A team has been analysing their rumbly greeting calls using AI. Is this a hint that we’ve been wrong about other animals, too?It’s a weather report like no other: two to three million years ago, the protective bubble called the

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26:46

Dead Planets Society: How Many Moons Could Earth Have?

The world, the universe and us ·

2024/06/10

For the Dead Planeteers, one moon around Earth isn’t enough. They want to pack as many moons into the night sky as possible. But how many can you fit in orbit without everything becoming unstable and destructive?To answer this, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte enlist the help of astrophysicist Sean Raymond. Sean co-authored a research paper that sparked Leah’s New Scientist article titled: Moons can have moons and they are called moonmoons.So, not only do they work out how many moons we can fit around

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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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