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PODCAST

Where The Wild Thoughts Are

We’re talking about science. But not just any science...Each episode, journalist Jo Marchant meets researchers who are doing things differently: challenging our assumptions, stretching our minds, and changing how we see the world.We’ll be pushing boundaries from cosmology and quantum physics to neuroscience, archaeology, ecology… Jo’s guests are asking deep questions, chasing outrageous dreams, and exploring the world in completely new ways.As well as learning about their pioneering ideas, we’ll

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All Episodes

54:02

Consciousness at the edge of chaos

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/10/27

Standing waves and resonant frequencies appear everywhere in the world around us, from musical notes and swaying bridges to electron orbits and animal coats. This week's guest, neuroscientist Selen Atasoy, wondered if they could also be found in the brain.Her work has led to a new way to understand different states of consciousness -- from anaesthesia through our normal waking state to meditation and psychedelics. She explains how changes in our awareness reflect a shifting balance between order and

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52:35

Spirits, skulls and scorpions: Journey into Göbekli Tepe

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/10/20

Steady your nerves and light up your torches, because this week we’re clambering into the deep, dark Neolithic underworld with archaeologist Jens Notroff.Jens, of the German Archaeological Institute, has spent years excavating one of the world’s most fascinating and mysterious prehistoric sites – Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. This is a series of circular stone enclosures, featuring giant T-shaped figures and carvings of fearsome predators – and possibly also once decorated with human skulls

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51:14

Can life transcend physics?

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/10/13

We’re talking about life, the universe and everything – literally!My guest is cosmologist Marina Cortês of the University of Lisbon. Marina trained as a dancer before helping to shake up cosmology with some revolutionary ideas about the nature of time. As if that wasn’t enough – she’s now using the tools of theoretical physics to investigate the significance of life in the universe, in a new field that she and her colleagues call biocosmology.Marina’s work goes against many of the normal assumptions

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46:01

The medicine that shouldn't work

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/10/06

Placebo effects are not about expectation, or positive thinking, and you don’t have to believe you’re taking a real drug to feel better. In fact, they are not in your mind at all, but your body.This is what self-confessed ‘deviant’ Ted Kaptchuk wants you to know, after conducting decades of research that has shocked the medical establishment and turned upside down conventionalthinking about placebos.I’ve been a fan of Ted’s work ever since we first met in 2014, when I was researching my book Cure: A

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53:26

Can we talk to whales?

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/29

This week we’ll be diving into the world of whales - as well as dolphins and other cetaceans - with biologist and filmmaker Tom Mustill, author of the fascinating book How to Speak Whale. I first learned about Tom’s work in 2023 when I attended a talk he gave at the British Library, and he began with the story of how on a kayaking trip he was almost crushed by a breaching humpback whale.After that experience, and the discovery that the whale may actually have saved his life by twisting in the air to

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41:33

Can we sense magnetic fields?

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/22

This week, we're digging into how living creatures – including us – sense and respond to magnetic fields with quantum biologist Margaret Ahmad of the University of Sorbonne in Paris.For decades, biologists knew about striking examples of species apparently navigating by Earth’s magnetic field, from monarch butterflies to loggerhead turtles to racing pigeons. Yet for years, many physicists said any ‘magnetosense’ was impossible, insisting the Earth’s field is far too weak to affect any biological

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54:11

Herculaneum scrolls: Cracking the impossible

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/15

This week, we delve into one of the ancient world's biggest mysteries: the Herculaneum scrolls. Computer scientist Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky talks about a journey that has taken him from Mars to Beowulf to the Dead Sea and beyond. AI has been key to finally reading what's inside the scrolls -- but this is a story about human ingenuity, and what it takes to make an impossible dream come true.These are hundreds of Greek and Latin papyri, buried by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD and

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34:31

Epilepsy, ecstasy and the nature of reality

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/08

This week, we’re exploring the secrets of bliss – with neurologist and epilepsy specialist Fabienne Picard of the Medical School of Geneva.Fabienne became fascinated by a rare condition called “ecstatic seizure” after reading the work of 19th century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.He used his own experiences with epilepsy as inspiration, in particular a profound and intriguing feeling that would strike him just before the seizure itself. He wrote about how, for a few moments, all of his doubts

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57:32

What if there are no laws of physics?

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/01

When physicists investigate the very smallest components of reality – atoms and subatomic particles – they famously find all sorts of things that make no sense. Particles can apparently be in different places at once, and they have different properties depending on how we measure them. Spooky effects seem to act instantaneously, across vast distances. The decisions we make can even alter journeys that particles have already made.Researchers have come up with different interpretations for what these

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41:12

Is there life on Venus?

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/01

In the search for alien life, we don’t always hear much about Venus. There’s a lot of effort going into detecting possible signs of life on Mars, and looking for potentially habitable planets beyond our solar system. Venus seems a crazy place to look for aliens: its surface is burning hot, hot enough to melt lead; and it has clouds made of concentrated acid. But could a very different kind of life from ours be living in those cloud droplets?My guest is astronomer Jane Greaves, from the University of

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47:01

Can plants think?

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/09/01

In this first episode of Where the Wild Thoughts Are, I chat to Paco Calvo, prof of cognitive science from the University of Murcia in Spain. He’s author of the fascinating Planta sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence, and he researches the neurobiology of plants. From bean plants searching out supports to climb up, to parasitic vines chasing down prey, to slow-growing oak trees, Paco is convinced that not only are plants showing intelligent behaviour, they’re sentient, awake, aware.Perhaps you’re

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3:21

Where The Wild Thoughts Are - Coming soon

Where The Wild Thoughts Are ·

2025/08/01

Listen to some clips from Jo Marchant's new science podcast in which she interviews scientists who are asking deep questions, chasing outrageous dreams, and exploring the world in completely new ways. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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