Biotechnology

Surprisingly the field of particle physics poses a handful of existential threats, not just for us humans, but for everything alive on Earth – and in some cases, the entire universe. Poking around on the frontier of scientific understanding has its risks. (Original score by Point ... Show More

We humans are our own worst enemies when it comes to what it will take to deal with existential risks. We are loaded with cognitive biases, can’t coordinate on a global scale, and see future generations as freeloaders. Seriously, are we going to survive? (Original score by Point ... Show More

Josh explains that to survive the next century or two – to navigate our existential threats – all of us will have to become informed and involved. It will take a movement that gets behind science done right to make it through the Great Filter. (Original score by Point Lobo.) Inte ... Show More

<p>More than a century ago, millions of people around the world died in a massive influenza pandemic. The so-called "Spanish flu" outbreak of 1918 revealed a truth about viruses: they don't just infect us biologically. They also detect fissures in societies and fault lines betwee ... Show More

Cold and flu season is well and truly upon us, and whilst most of us are busy bemoaning the pesky viruses behind our sniffles and chesty coughs – one of our listeners has other ideas. Elizabeth wants to know whether we’re too hard on these oft-maligned microbes? We’ve all heard t ... Show More

Is some knowledge too dangerous to possess? Covid-19 has put cutting-edge research on pandemic germs under the spotlight. We Meet: Rowan Jacobsen, journalist Gigi Gronvall, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and associate professor Kevin Esvelt, profes ... Show More

<p>It's true - scientists around the world are increasingly concerned that antibiotics are losing their effectiveness, leading to a future filled with unstoppable bacteria. But could it actually happen? How did we get here, and what happens next?</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ... Show More

<p>Two scientists realize that the very same AI technology they have developed to discover medicines for rare diseases can also discover the most potent chemical weapons known to humankind. Inadvertently opening the Pandora’s Box of WMDs. What should they do now?</p> <p><em>Speci ... Show More

In the news podcast this week, the first human death from bird flu in the US has made virologists vigilant about its potential threat. Also, we learn about the potentially billions of tonnes of sequestered hydrogen on Earth that could be used for clean energy, and hear of the pro ... Show More

<p>The definition of life is in flux, complexity is overrated, and humans are shrinking.</p> <p>Viruses are supposed to be sleek, pared-down, dead-eyed machines. But when one microbiologist stumbled upon a GIANT virus, hundreds of times bigger than any seen before, all that went ... Show More

Cautionary Conversation: In 1990, a small extremist group launched a nerve gas attack on passengers riding the Tokyo subway. Thousands of people were hurt, more than a dozen died. At the time, such use of a chemical weapon seemed new and uniquely terrifying. But advances in biolo ... Show More

<p>It infected one-third of the world's population and killed 50 million people, but for most of us the Spanish Flu is little more than a footnote of history. Author and science journalist Laura Spinney tells us what we have still to learn from from the 20th Century's worst pande ... Show More

The All of Us Research Program is undergoing the herculean task of gathering genomic data from over one million people living in the United States, from widely different backgrounds, in the hopes of accelerating health care research. However, within the scientific community many, ... Show More